


The World is Out There

by samariumwriting



Series: The Crests are to Blame [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Family, Found Family, Gen, Nonbinary My Unit | Byleth, Platonic Relationships, Slow Burn, Spoilers, Trans Characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-02-01 01:30:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 42,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21314899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samariumwriting/pseuds/samariumwriting
Summary: Crests are gifts from the Goddess, but they're also power in its purest form. And, power, no matter whether it runs in the blood or not, can corrupt. Many years ago, in the age of Seiros, the Crests corrupted those who bore them, plunging the world into chaos, and Seiros swore it would never happen again.Garreg Mach teaches every single Crest bearer how to control their Crest. From the moment it surfaces until the moment the Church decides they're ready, a person with a Crest must be there.Byleth never was. They've hidden their Crest their whole life. And when they come into the picture at Garreg Mach, forces are moving. Come the end of the year...the world will never be the same again.
Relationships: Black Eagles Students & My Unit | Byleth, Blue Lions Students & My Unit | Byleth, Golden Deer Students & My Unit | Byleth, Jeralt Reus Eisner & My Unit | Byleth
Series: The Crests are to Blame [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1576561
Comments: 83
Kudos: 115





	1. Prelude - Disturbance in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, and welcome to a biiiiig project! This is my NaNoWriMo for this year and the idea for this au has been rattling around in my head for a while. Hopefully it's as engaging to read as thinking about the au was!
> 
> Small warning for the first chapter, there's some fairly non-graphic description of someone meeting a not-so-nice end.

When Byleth was eight years old, a thief broke into the encampment at night. The whole camp was asleep, tired out from the day’s activities seeking out a particularly dug in group of bandits on the Alliance-Kingdom border.

Everyone was asleep, including the guard who was meant to be on watch, except Byleth. In the last few days, they’d felt...strange. Like there was something hot under their skin, and their mind couldn’t stop racing. They went from one thought to the next to the next and it made it hard to sleep. When they did sleep, it was restless, which led to their current situation.

There was a man Byleth didn’t recognise standing at the entrance to the tent they shared with their father. The man had a knife, and he was coming in. He hadn’t noticed Byleth was awake. Watching them.

The moment his back was turned, they leapt to their feet, and there was a flash of light as they lunged forward with the sword they kept beside their bedding. They didn’t know where the light came from, because the whole tent was dark, but when they could see again, the thief in front of them was on fire.

Byleth screamed, which woke their father. The man was shouting, but also staring right at them. They weren’t good with expressions at the best of times, but there was a look on his face that they just didn’t understand.

They ran away, desperate to get away from the flames that had appeared out of nowhere. When things happened that they couldn’t explain, it scared them. They ran, and the fire spread, and their father wouldn’t let them go anywhere near the tent until the rest of the camp was awake and the now burnt to a crisp fabric shelter was cleared away.

Byleth didn’t manage to sleep again until the dawn was starting to show itself through the clouds. They caught a few more snatches of sleep. They felt exhausted for a reason they couldn’t understand. They didn’t normally feel tired like this when they’d slept badly. And in their exhaustion, they didn’t even notice that the hot feeling under their skin had vanished.

Their father stayed behind the next morning when everyone else went out on the job. Normally, he left Byleth in the camp with only their medic and whoever happened to be off duty for whatever reason that day. They watched him, over their breakfast, tell his deputy that last night had been a shock and he wanted to make sure they felt secure today.

They felt fine. There was warmth bubbling under their skin again (it was at this point that they realised it had subsided the night before), but they were fine. These kinds of things didn’t really shock or scare them, and they knew it would probably happen again some day. They weren’t in danger. Nothing bad had happened. But their father stayed anyway.

“Byleth,” he said, coming over to them once everyone had headed out for the day. “Come on a walk with me. There’s something I need to tell you about.”

They nodded, and their walk began in silence. They weren’t usually one for words at all, and their father hated small talk. When he decided he was going to talk about the reason he’d called them out here, he’d talk. Before then, he probably wouldn’t say a word.

They didn’t know why he was waiting. They were completely alone out here in the woods, after all, and they’d already walked quite a way from the encampment. Maybe he actually wanted to show them something, or it was a really huge secret that he couldn’t risk anyone else hearing at all.

They had no idea what he might want to hide. He didn’t have many secrets, they didn’t think. They lived very ordinary, boring lives with a lot of routine. They weren’t super boring, because they travelled to a lot of different places and met a lot of different people, but they didn’t have anything to hide.

At least, not that their father ever told them. Not until that day.

When they were half an hour away from the camp, maybe even more, their father stopped. “We’re going to be here a while,” he said, and motioned to the drier ground underneath a large tree before lowering himself down. They followed. “So, kid. What do you know about Crests?”

They furrowed their brow slightly. The word sounded familiar, but right now they couldn’t collect their thoughts quite in the right direction. “Not much,” they answered. There was no point in lying. “There...was a bandit with a Crest that someone asked us to fight, and you turned the job down.”

“I did,” he said, and they caught a hint of a smile on his face. “Well remembered, Byleth. When I’m done talking, you’ll know why I turned it down.

“Some people have Crests,” he said. “They’re...I don’t really know what they are. But they’re part of a person’s body that you can’t get rid of once they exist. Some people think they’re contained within your blood. They don’t leave a physical mark, but they’re there.”

“How do you know if you can’t see them?” they asked, when he lapsed into silence. He liked it when they asked questions, showed interest or initiative in something. It was hard to open their mouth and ask sometimes, but it was worth the small upturn of his mouth in response.

“Crests give people special powers,” he said. “Normally, it means that if they hit someone with a weapon, it hits harder. Sometimes, people with Crests can move faster, or they have an aptitude for magic. And sometimes they have...strange effects.”

“Like what?”

“Like setting someone on fire, kid.”

Their mind immediately flicked to the flash of light, the man screaming. “He had a Crest?” they asked. It was a hopeful question. The other question had an answer they didn’t want to hear. Because they didn’t know much about Crests, but they knew they weren’t good.

“No, kid,” their father said, and he had such a sad look in his eyes. “You have a Crest. But you can’t tell anyone, and you can’t let anyone know, okay?”

They just wanted to say that yes, they understood, and they’d hide it, but… “Why?” they asked. They needed to know why. They didn’t even know how they’d set a man on fire (they’d set a man on fire. They’d killed someone, painfully, without meaning to. They’d never even killed someone with a sword yet and that was going to be their job one day), let alone how to hide it.

“What do you know about the Church of Seiros?” he asked. 

“Not much,” they said. “It’s big, and people believe in it. But I don’t know anything about what they believe.”

“That’s fine,” he said. He’d once told them that the less they knew about the Church, the less it could influence what they did, and that was a good thing. It didn’t mean they weren’t curious, but it was one of few things they never sought out. “They think that Crests are very dangerous and that only they can teach people how to control them. So if anyone who believes in the Church sees you have a Crest, they might try and take you far away from here.

“They mean well, of course, but it means you’d have to go somewhere else, far away, and learn things that might not help you. And they won’t let you go until they decide you’re ready, which might be long after you can control your Crest.”

“I don’t want to go anywhere,” they said. They didn’t often feel things very much, but fear gripped them right then. This was...this was normal. This life they had was the normal they knew, the normal they understood, and that meant they didn’t want to leave it behind. The way their father said it, they might be alone if that happened. They didn’t want to be alone.

“You don’t have to, kiddo,” he said, and he reached a hand out to ruffle their hair, a silent question in his eyes. They shook their head. It wouldn’t help right now. He withdrew his hand and continued. “I’m sure you can hide it well enough.”

“How?”

“Now?” he asked. They nodded. “Okay. How’re you feeling right now?”

“Scared,” they said. They didn’t often feel fear, but they felt it now.

“Anything else?”

They thought for a moment, searching their mind for any feeling or sensation. “Itchy,” they said. “I think I’m getting sick, I feel hot.”

He made a quiet, thoughtful noise. “Hot under your skin?” he asked, and they nodded. “That’s Crest power,” he said. “You’re not getting sick. It’s easy enough to control, but it will take a bit of practise to teach you how. Are you ready to start?”

It was like he was taking them through a training session. He was using the same words, the same voice, and they supposed it was training, just in a different way. “Yes,” they said, and the lesson began.


	2. Part One: White Clouds. Prologue - An Inevitable Encounter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything was fine. They could control their Crest, hide it from the world, and stay with their father. But everything changed when those three students showed up in the middle of the night.

Byleth had a dream that had recurred almost every single night since their Crest surfaced for the first time. There was a battle between a man and woman whose faces they now knew by heart, events they could follow moment by moment that never changed. These were a constant feature of their life.

But the scene that followed the ending of the battle, the rising of the sun and a smear of blood against a warrior’s cheek, didn’t happen every night. It happened often enough that they knew how it would play out, however.

A girl sat on a throne far too large for her short legs, in a dark room they never thought to look around in their dream. Actually, they didn’t even know if it was a room or not. She spoke to them. They gave her information about themselves, and discovered that their birthday was the same. Her surprise was the same every single time, though surely the information was familiar after so many years. Their birthday didn’t change.

That night, though, the words did change. Normally, the dream just faded out at some point along the line. That night, however...when the girl on the throne yawned, words escaped her mouth before the scene faded. “It is almost time...to begin…”

For some reason, the words sent a shiver down their spine. They didn’t know why. Dreams meant nothing, that was what their father always told them. The fact that they had the same dream over and over? It probably meant very little. It didn’t show them the future. It had no real meaning, it was just something their mind imagined.

Nonetheless, they woke up with a feeling that something was about to happen. Something that would disrupt the relatively peaceful, ordered life they had now.

And their intuition, as it often was, turned out to be spot on. Within minutes of waking up and preparing for the day ahead, the call to arms went up; someone was outside, and they needed help.

Byleth noticed the change in their father’s demeanour immediately. His usual easygoing ways closed up instantly when he caught sight of the three youths ahead of him. They didn’t understand why; the trio had been attacked by bandits and were alone, practically helpless in the face of a band of well armed and presumably rather persistent bandits.

There was something off about the whole situation. Their father’s reaction to the way the three were dressed, the circumstances that had led them to become separated (why had no one followed? Why had the three of them managed to stay together?). There was something wrong.

Their suspicions were confirmed, in part, when their father pulled them aside for a moment. “I know you’re always careful, kiddo, but be especially careful tonight.” Their Crest. This had something to do with their Crest. “Those three...aren’t free to go when this skirmish is over, and I doubt their ‘companions’ are far behind.”

The Church. Those three had Crests, and their companions were the Church of Seiros. Their father had always told them that if they were ever handed over to those people, they wouldn’t leave for many years. It was more important than ever, this close to people who were so linked to them, that they managed to hide their Crest.

That was, of course, easier said than done. It had appeared in battle on occasion, though seemingly no one had ever noticed before. It was hard to keep it under wraps, but they managed it. Just. They saw a flash of light once or twice and their heart leapt into their chest, but it was always one of the three mysterious youths.

Three who fought with an odd level of expertise. All three of them, a carefully oiled machine, the cogs weaving around each other and working in tandem. They knew what they were doing. When those Crests appeared, it was always when they were needed. Always when an extra push would help.

So Byleth held back as much as they could, pulling their blows just a little. Just in case. They could control themselves, but they didn’t want their father to worry. They didn’t want to risk anything.

But, of course, battles didn’t always allow for punches to be pulled. Sometimes, things went horribly wrong, and situations couldn’t be avoided. Byleth told themselves this when they threw themselves in front of an axe and gained a second chance.

There was no way to win without using the power of their Crest. Their body was too far from where the brown-haired girl was about to be struck for them to defend her without throwing their life away. They had to use the Crest.

There was no time for them to apologise to their father, but they knew he’d understand. He’d have to understand, because the life of another was far more important than a risk that they’d be taken from him. They wanted to save her.

Normally, Byleth didn’t feel too strongly about the lives of others. As a mercenary, sometimes people you knew died, and it was unavoidable. But this young woman...for some reason, they didn’t think they could abandon her to an early grave.

Their eyes snapped open when time restarted and they let the power of flames burst from their fingertips. The woman jumped back, her eyes flitting from Byleth to the bandit who’d been coming for her life. She looked...afraid.

Not willing to risk the same event happening again, Byleth cut the bandit down for good measure, turning back to the young woman as she stared at them. Stared at the slightly singed corpse on the ground. “You...have a Crest,” she said.

Almost instantly, the other two who’d been fighting bandits at the top of an incline rushed over. “Edelgard, was that...was that you?” the blond boy asked, his eyes glittering with something Byleth recognised as concern.

“No, Dimitri, surely you know I can’t do anything of that sort,” Edelgard said. She looked at Byleth, and though they shook their head frantically, the other two followed her gaze and put two and two together.

“That was you?” the final member of the trio asked. They’d all called to each other once or twice in battle, but Byleth hadn’t managed to catch their names amidst the chaos. “There’s a story in this. That was Crest power, right?”

It took their father barely more than a second to catch up to where the fighting had ended. “My child can use magic,” he said. The coldness of his tone informed Byleth almost immediately that he was absolutely not pleased. They were going to have some explaining to do. “That was a fire spell. They have nothing to do with your Crests.”

There was an inflection to his voice when he said that word that didn’t quite compute with Byleth. He’d never, ever sounded like that when he spoke about Crests before. He seemed almost...no, they didn’t have a word for it. The closest they could think of was disgust, but that wasn’t it. “Oh, of course, sir,” Dimitri said, dipping into a low bow. “I’m sure Claude meant no offence by the suggestion.”

“If he didn’t, then he should be more careful with his suggestions,” Jeralt said. His voice was so cold. “From my end, it sounded rather more like an accusation. Now, if you three are safe, my company have somewhere to be. I hope you get back safely.”

“No need to be so hasty,” Edelgard said. Her eyes were still fixed on them, barely straying even once to their father. “As we said, we have companions approaching. I’m sure they’ll be very thankful for your aid, and you are a mercenary company…”

Their father was just about to interrupt, and they knew that would involve an order to them to pack up and move out, but that was when a new set of footsteps approached, and a booming voice sounded. “Ah, they’re getting away! You go after them and round the rest up, I’ll secure the students.”

Claude grimaced. “Oh well, at least it’s Alois.” Dimitri and Edelgard’s eyes both turned to him, mixtures of confusion and anger clearly visible in their expressions, and Edelgard opened her mouth to speak.

She closed it again immediately when a man made his way through the trees. “There you are!” he called, and his face split into a wide smile. “I was rather worried about you three, you know. You all vanished so quickly, and we can’t have anyone thinking you were trying to run off, can we?”

“Come on,” their father said, speaking with as low a voice as they’d ever heard from him, right into their ear. “We need to move. Now.” But just as they turned to leave, Alois seemingly checking over each of the three (students? Escapees?), the man’s head snapped up and his grin widened further.

“Captain Jeralt!” he cheered, and three pairs of eyes whipped round to stare at him. “Fancy meeting you here.” He chattered on for a while about how he’d missed Jeralt, how he thought he had...died? In a fire?

Their father kept trying to leave. He dropped in one goodbye, and then another, and then mentioned that they had something to get to, but Alois clearly didn’t want to let it go. He was excited, that much Byleth could tell, but he couldn’t seem to get the message that Jeralt really, really wanted to leave.

It was then that Alois suggested they should visit Garreg Mach. That he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Their father objected once, twice, a third time, but he just wouldn’t stop talking about how great it would be, how Lady Rhea (whoever that was) would be so happy to see him alive.

Eventually, Jeralt agreed. He’d stop in quickly, he said, basically en route to their job. Only for a moment. They definitely wouldn’t stay for long, because they had places to be and he was no longer affiliated with the Church.

Byleth hung back from interacting with any of them as they made the journey north east to what they’d been informed was a monastery nestled in the mountains. The look their father gave them when the trio of students they’d rescued had come to talk to them told them everything they needed to know.

Their father was worried that this wouldn’t be a short trip. Their father was worried about them, and worried about what the three of them, Edelgard in particular, already knew about them. He was concerned that he’d be leaving for his job in Faerghus down one member of his mercenary group. And there was nothing they could do about it.

The three students chattered a lot, even though they refused to engage in the conversation. They were too worried that somehow something they said would give them away, and the three seemed happy to talk amongst themselves or just talk about themselves anyway.

“You said you’ve never been involved with the Church?” Dimitri asked. “Never at all, even with your mercenary group? The Church of Seiros hire mercenaries all the time.”

They shook their head. “The whole world doesn’t revolve around the Church, as I’m sure you know,” Edelgard said. “And if you don’t, you’d do well to remember that in the future.”

“Oh Edelgard, is that a heresy I hear?” Claude asked. Byleth had noticed, after a few minutes of watching them all interact, that Claude’s smiles were very fake. “We can’t have you saying mean things about the Church.”

“And we can’t have you making a break for it on the first excursion of the year, yet here we are,” Edelgard shot back.

“I was making a tactical retreat,” Claude protested.

“And there I thought you were drawing away the enemy,” Dimitri said, a look on his face that betrayed he was not, in fact, surprised. “Surely you know better than to try and run by now, Claude?”

Claude shot a look over to Alois and the other Church soldiers, who were either far ahead or far behind. “Worth a try,” he said with a shrug. “I doubt we would have made it out alive if we’d stayed in one place, though. They were on us in an instant.”

“Say what you like,” Edelgard said with a short huff. “It reflects poorly on all of us, and for the future of the Alliance, if you would so readily throw away your freedom and have us chase after you.”

“You didn’t have to,” he said. “I didn’t ask you to. There’s also no point squabbling over it, and plenty more things to dedicate our time to. Like breathing in the open air, feeling the sunlight before it’s snatched away…”

“Claude, you’re being awfully dramatic,” Dimitri said, and the grin Claude shot him told Byleth that he was doing it on purpose. “Just because you spend all your time in the library doesn’t mean we’re locked up there. You’re giving a poor impression of our hosts to our new friend.”

“Ah yes, our illustrious hosts,” Claude said. Dimitri shot him a look. “Don’t you think the air is clearer out here? Sweeter?”

“Claude, we’re at the bottom of the monastery town,” Edelgard said. “The air is almost exactly the same. Complaining all the time hardly suits you.”

“Oh, we’re that close already?” Dimitri asked. “Byleth, look,” he said, pointing upwards. “It’ll come into view once we’re out of this tree cover, and then you’ll be able to see the monastery. Our home.”

“For better or worse,” Edelgard said.

Byleth got the distinct impression that their father’s apprehension of this place was correct. They’d barely been able to work out what his link to the place was, but he clearly knew that people who were here to gain control of their Crests… Not all of them liked that they had to be here.

The monastery came into view, and Byleth’s jaw dropped. They’d never seen a building so huge in their life. It only got bigger as they got closer, and once they were inside it was downright overwhelming. There were people everywhere. Within moments of arriving, all three of the students they’d been walking with made themselves scarce, and Byleth was left with just their father and the knights. And a feeling they were walking into something dangerous.

The Archbishop had Byleth on edge, for some reason. It was the way she looked at them. Like she was sizing them up. A little how Edelgard looked at them, actually, but Rhea had...power. She had power over them. Power over when they left this place.

“Is this your child?” Rhea asked their father. Just as they opened their mouth to confirm her guess, their father shook his head.

“An orphan,” he said. “I raised them, but they’re not related to me. I never...after Lydia…” Lydia was a name they’d never heard before.

“Of course,” she said. The look on her face was sad. “Alois told me they were quite remarkable in battle. Perhaps you might consider-”

“A kind offer, Lady Rhea, which I thank you for, but I have to decline,” he said. “We both have a job to do further north. I’m sure you understand that time waits for no man, so you’ll have to excuse us. I’m sorry to cut the reunion so short.”

“I understand,” she said. “Though...permit me one thing first. An indulgence of curiosity, if you will.”

That was where they should have run away. That was where the whole thing should have ended. They should have fought their way out, had anyone tried to stop them. They should have worked harder to preserve everything their father had given them.

It was not even five minutes later that Byleth and Jeralt were both forbidden to leave Garreg Mach for the foreseeable future. It wasn’t even five minutes later that the mercenary life came to a sudden halt. Because they had a Crest, a Crest their father had always told them to hide, and now they’d both pay for that deception.


	3. Part One: White Clouds. Chapter 1.1 - The Will of the Goddess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The consequences of all those years hiding come back to bite Byleth. They find out a little more about Fódlan, and learn about the students of Garreg Mach.

“Young Byleth, tell me,” the Archbishop said. Her voice was soft, but dangerous. Byleth knew they’d managed to get themselves into a rather dangerous position. They knew little of the Church of Seiros, but they were pretty sure that defying their jurisdiction over Crests was close to heresy. “What do you know about Crests?”

“Only what I know of my own,” they said truthfully. A Crest that could set people alight, a Crest that could drain the life force of others. It was dangerous, powerful, and often difficult to control. More difficult after they’d had one of those dreams of the girl on the throne. The girl who had saved their life.

“And what is that?” she asked.

“That Crests can have immense power and advantage when wielded well,” they said. When they fought alone, they always tried to use its power if they were in a pinch. “And that, while it can be a challenge, they can be controlled.”

“How do you do that?” she asked.

“Breathing,” they answered. Breathing, and focusing, and imagining a fire contained in a fire pit. That was how they did it, how their father instructed them to do it. “I can control it with no issue, and have for over half my life. There is no need to concern yourself over that, if that is why you restricted our passage.” They were not normally someone who used many words, but this was important. This was worth the effort.

“I see,” she said. The lightness of her tone told Byleth that she did not, in fact, see. “That may be the case. However, that does not mean your passage from here should be granted. Your father knows well the laws surrounding Crests. Do you?”

“No,” they admitted. The Archbishop knew their father had broken the law, did it help to conceal that they knew that too? They knew the bare minimum. “I knew I should always hide my Crest.”

“Your father mentioned you were brought up in ignorance of the Church,” Rhea said. The undercurrent of anger in her tone, the clear sense of something dangerous, never faded. “So let me tell you of the Goddess. Many years ago, the divine Goddess gifted to many in Fódlan the power of a Crest. She gifted many kinds, and people used them with great benevolence.

“However, select humans squandered that power, casting the world into chaos. Overcome with grief, the Goddess left the world, and sent only the divine Seiros in her stead to right the wrongs. From then, it became the mission of the Church to ensure no such event ever happened again.

“For, while Crests have power, that power is dangerous. If that power becomes too strong, and the body and mind that houses it too weak, then there comes a time when something buried deep within a person’s blood takes over. That is why all those with Crests must, by law, spend time at the monastery here until they are able to control themselves.”

They nodded. None of the information was unsurprising, exactly, but some parts of the tale sat oddly with them for reasons they could not understand. That was the justification of the Church, the reason those three children were back within these walls. “I can control myself,” they said. “Surely any wrongdoing is in the past, if the result is the same.”

“Perhaps,” she said. That didn’t inspire Byleth with much confidence for their release. “But I would like to see that in action. Jeralt is...an old friend of mine. And you, even if not by blood, are his child. So I have a proposition for you.”

-

“You accepted a job as a professor here?” their father asked. The disbelief in his tone, the disappointment...they’d wronged him, they knew, but they had felt as if they couldn’t refuse. The Archbishop was dangerous, and denying her what she wanted would only worsen their father’s situation. They knew that.

“In exchange for your freedom to leave,” they said. They knew it was a trade their father would not have wanted them to take. They knew he wanted to stay by their side, but at least this way he had a choice. If they chose to leave, he could not go with them, but if they stayed then he could come and go as he pleased.

“By, I- you know why I hid you from them, all this time?” He sounded so heartbroken. They’d never heard him so sad before, even on the off occasion that he mentioned their mother.

“So I never had to be trapped here,” they said. They restrained the sigh they wanted to let out. They didn’t want to make their father feel any worse. “Father, this is my choice. I grew up free from any of this, and I...I am truly thankful for that.” It was their fault, after all, that this had happened. If they hadn’t been forced to show their Crest, they wouldn’t have been caught up in that conversation. They would have been able to leave before Alois arrived, and then they never would have been forced to go to the monastery.

“Byleth,” he said, his voice firm, and they moved their gaze to meet his eyes. “You did a good thing, and you didn’t have to do it. Thank you.”

Byleth wrapped their arms around his back, holding him as tightly as they could. They knew he was going to leave; if he didn’t, he said he’d get roped in to doing something or other that he didn’t want to do and then he’d never be able to leave.

But he’d be back, he said. He’d be back, because they were his child. They tried not to watch as he left, tried to be the one to turn their back first. They’d never, ever been apart from him, not for more than a handful of days. They knew him better than anyone else in the world, and they didn’t know the world all that well without him.

It would be hard. They hadn’t wanted him to leave. But they also knew that it would be far, far worse if he was forced to stay. They didn’t turn their back until he vanished from sight.

The staff of the monastery were...mostly welcoming. There was the man who had tested them for a Crest, whose gaze seemed to be picking apart their entire being, but he was, at least, friendly enough. There was the incredibly friendly Manuela, and the enthusiastic Alois. But there was also Seteth, who was not so well disposed towards them.

“I would have you know that I do not approve of your appointment,” he told them, almost immediately upon meeting them. “An unvetted Crest bearer with no Church training is unheard of within this staff. But as it is the Archbishop’s decision, consider yourself merely warned.”

All that was left was to meet the students. Maybe then they would finally get a little clarity on what the nature of this place really was. And whether or not they’d made a huge mistake in accepting to come here.

-

“They’ve made you a professor?” Edelgard asked, her brow furrowed slightly. “That seems an odd choice, but I would admit that I’d like to learn from you. Would you like to know about the students from Adrestia here?”

They nodded. “But I want to ask you a question first,” they said. “What’s it like, living here?”

Edelgard’s gaze narrowed slightly. “Fine enough,” she said. “Garreg Mach is no palace, but I like a lot of the people. I miss my home and my family less than I used to when I was young. That said, I am rather eager to get out into the world. I have quite the future ahead of me and I need all the time I can get to see my aims carried through.”

“I see,” they said. If they recalled correctly, Edelgard was a princess of the Adrestian Empire. They’d never kept up with politics like that as a mercenary, but she’d mentioned it at some point in the journey back to the monastery. “Tell me about the other students, then.”

“There’s Hubert, of House Vestra,” Edelgard said. “His family serve mine, so he’s assigned to aid and watch over me right now. He has no Crest, but he was allowed to attend anyway. Then there’s Ferdinand, of House Aegir. He comes from a line of Prime Ministers, and has a little bit of a tendency to exaggerate his own talents. He has a minor Crest of Cichol, and he’s been here as long as I have. It means he views me as a rival, I suppose. It can be terribly annoying.

“Then there’s Bernadetta, of House Varley. She has a minor Crest of Indech, and while she’s a very friendly and gentle girl, she’s also quite shy. She takes a while to warm up to strangers, but she really is lovely. After that is Linhardt, of House Hevring. He has a minor Crest of Cethleann, and he’s perhaps the most lazy young man I’ve ever met. He has a bizarre fascination with Crests, so I’m sure he’ll want to talk to you about yours.

“And the last of the current students from the Adrestian Empire is Christie, my younger sister. Like myself, she bears a minor Crest of Seiros. She’s perhaps not the ideal princess, but she’s a wonderful sister.”

“That’s everyone?” they asked. Edelgard nodded.

“Adrestia has the most number of students here, and the Alliance and Kingdom both have fewer. Their unofficial representatives are Claude and Dimitri, who you’ve already met, but there’s honestly not too much distinction between the different groups. We all learn together.”

“That must be quite a loud class,” they said, and Edelgard laughed.

“It absolutely is,” she said. “It can get quite hectic at times. I hope you’re ready, Professor.”

They hoped so too, bidding her farewell and moving out into the courtyard. They’d never taught before, only been a student. They felt like they knew a lot of things, and they had the practical experience that Archbishop Rhea claimed was so valuable, but they were still a little nervous. The students they’d heard about so far sounded like real characters.

Claude was the student they saw next, and he waved as they approached. “Hey, Teach! It is Teach now, right?” They nodded. Strictly, it was Professor, but they didn’t want to split hairs. “Well then, welcome to Garreg Mach monastery,” he said, and Byleth caught two things they’d already been expecting: sarcasm, making it very clear that nothing about this place was welcoming, and a very fake smile. “Anything you want to know? I’m mostly familiar with the Alliance students.”

“What’s it like to live here, for you?” they asked. Their situation was different to Claude’s own, but...they wanted to know every piece of information they could about life here. Anything that would help them.

“Well, that depends on whether I’m allowed to speak freely or not,” he said. His casual tone didn’t match the words. He was sizing them up. He wanted to know where they stood. Edelgard had perhaps been doing the same, but not so blatantly. They wondered why Claude wanted to know. They wondered why he was the one to say it so openly.

“I’m asking for your honest, real opinion,” they replied. “Not whatever you feed to the world at large.” Not whatever he was told to say, if there was such a thing.

“It’s Fódlan in a nutshell, I suppose,” he said. “With an emphasis on the nut. No one in this place is even close to what you’d describe as normal. When it comes to students, we’re a bit of a dysfunctional family. We come from all sorts of places and backgrounds.”

“And you?” they asked.

Claude’s smile hardened in the blink of an eye. Did he think he was subtle? He was harder to read than most people, but... “Don’t you worry about me,” he said. “Let’s just spend the next year or so getting to know each other. How does that sound?”

It sounded like a deflection. Like truths he didn’t want to speak. But if the truth of his Crest and how he’d come to be confined here was something he wouldn’t speak, then that was fine. There was a lot going on, after all, and they had plenty of time to learn. “That sounds good to me,” they said. “Tell me about the other Alliance students?”

“Of course,” Claude said, and the smile reappeared on his face. “So first up there’s Hilda. She’s horrendously lazy and all talk, so basically your typical noble, but if you get her to do something then she’s honestly really competent. I just haven’t worked out how to get her to actually do things.

“Then there’s Lorenz. He’s...a character. He comes off as pretty prickly, and he’s absolutely insufferable about nobility, but on occasion he’s shown he has a kind heart. He’s been a lot stuffier in the last year, but I’m working on it.” At that, he winked. “Marianne is another of the students from the Alliance, she’s very quiet. I’ve known her for quite a while but I still don’t know much about her, if I’m being honest.

“The last student from the Alliance is Lysithea. She’s a bit younger than the rest of us, but she’s ridiculously intelligent and she doesn’t like being reminded of how young she is. It gives me the feeling she had to grow up even faster than the rest of us, but that’s none of my business.”

They nodded. Again, the students from the Alliance sounded like they’d be a handful in a class together. Teaching them would be another matter entirely. From the sound of it, a lot of the students here had been studying here for years, and had known each other for a while. Byleth honestly doubted all of them would listen to them when they tried to teach, but it was their job. They’d have to try.

The final person they needed to speak to was Dimitri, standing at the end of the courtyard. He smiled to them and nodded as they headed over, looking far more...genuine than Claude. They supposed that was the right word to describe it. “Good evening, Professor. It sounds strange to call you that, but I’ll get used to it,” he said. “Did you want to speak to me?”

“Just quickly,” they said. “I just had a couple of questions about Garreg Mach.”

“Of course,” he said. “What did you want to know?”

“What’s it like to live here?” they asked.

“Oh, I- that’s a little hard to describe,” he said, chuckling slightly. “I’ve lived at Garreg Mach for most of my life. I like the company, but it can be a little exhausting at times. If anyone has an argument, you can’t avoid the tension.”

“Do people argue often?” they asked.

Dimitri laughed. “All the time,” he said. “Most of us have been living in a shared space for nearly a decade. Arguing is just as natural as siblings arguing, really. We’re all close, but sometimes butting heads is inevitable.”

“I know the feeling,” they said. They always used to butt heads with the other mercenaries. It was never serious, and it always ended in them apologising to each other, but it only happened because they were familiar with each other. Maybe Garreg Mach wasn’t so different to the outside world after all.

“Was there anything else?” Dimitri asked.

“I’d just like to know a bit about the other students from Faerghus,” they said. “If you don’t mind.”

“That’s not a problem at all,” he said. “Well, there’s me first, but I imagine you’ve heard quite enough about me already. Accompanying me is Dedue. He doesn’t have a Crest, but he’s an incredibly loyal friend and companion who joined me here a few years ago.” A shadow passed over his face, but it did just that - passed. The look was gone within a moment.

“Then there’s Felix, an old friend of mine. We don’t get on perhaps as well as I’d like, but he’s an incredibly sincere and caring person if you get past his exterior. I suppose I’m meant to tell you that we’ve been asked to keep an eye on him; he has a major Crest.” Byleth nodded, though the statement in and of itself meant very little to them. They were sure they’d be told something similar by a staff member soon enough, too.

“I have two other old friends at the monastery, Sylvain and Ingrid. They’re like two polar opposites: Ingrid is serious and diligent, a truly admirable person. But Sylvain is...casual with his words. And his actions. I cannot blame him for having a little fun, but I do wish he would leave the women in the town alone.

“After that, and the last of the students from the Kingdom, there’s Annette. She’s a far more recent arrival at the monastery, but she’s a very hard worker. I don’t know how she does what she does with magic, but I know it takes a lot of work and I very much admire her for it.”

“They sound like a good bunch,” they said, and Dimitri’s face lit up in a smile.

“They are,” he said. “Everyone is, really. We have our differences, just like anyone does, but I’d describe the whole group as a family. And I know that it’s perhaps not the path you envisioned, Professor, but I hope you can find a space in that family too.”

They thanked him after that, and left to go to their new bedroom. They’d never had a fixed bedroom before; one of many things that were different about the way they’d be living for the foreseeable future.

The three students they’d spoken to today had given them a lot to think about. Everything they’d experienced today was...a lot. Their father, gone. Their entire future swept away as quickly as anything, replaced with a world they’d barely been introduced to.

There was so much going on at Garreg Mach. A class full of students who needed to be taught, but also supported. A school full of faculty and staff, a military organisation tasked with defending them from the world outside. And defending the world outside from them.

That was the other problem. Crests. Claude in particular seemed willing to show them he didn’t enjoy the way he was trapped here. For him, it was a trap. For Edelgard? Byleth couldn’t tell. She clearly wasn’t a fan, but at the same time...she- no, both of them - were hiding something about how they felt. Byleth couldn’t blame either of them, of course, because they were a stranger to both of them. But they wondered what would come out when they got to know them a little better.

And then Dimitri had another perspective altogether. He hadn’t said it in so many words, but he clearly saw the monastery, and perhaps by extension the Church, as his home. But it had kept him here since he was a child. What was the right view to take? Did they have the ability to even take a view? Was there even anything they could do, upon making up their mind?

It was difficult to grapple with, and Byleth was tired. They’d been up since the early hours of the morning, of course, and so much had happened that they just wanted to sleep.

So they slept, and dreamt of great armies clashing on a dark field.


	4. Part One: White Clouds. Chapter 1.2 - Keepers of the Peace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Byleth explores their new home, meets new people, and gathers more information. Yet they're only left with more questions.

Their next morning was free; they weren’t due to start teaching until the end of the week, which left them at least a little time to get used to how everything worked in Garreg Mach. They’d been handed a rough map, so their first task was to work out where everything was in relation to aforementioned hastily sketched map.

Right now, they were working out the east portion of the monastery. Pencil in hand, they were straightening out lines, marking doorways, and labelling areas. Their plan was to get another sheet of paper and redraw the map once they were done, but this would work for now.

The monastery was busy pretty much everywhere they went at any time of day, and the knight’s hall was no exception. They considered passing it by, but the building was too large. They couldn’t leave labelling it off their map for now, even when there were loud shouts coming from within.

“Raphael, do you have to shout so loudly?” an unfamiliar voice asked practically the moment Byleth walked in. They looked up at the scene ahead of them: a woman with her back to them, short dark hair not reaching her shoulders and a lance in her left hand, and in front of her, two young men.

The first was...huge. Tall, bulky, and blond, he held a wooden axe in his hands. To his right, there was a boy barely half his height who held a sword in his right hand. “Absolutely!” the blond boy, presumably Raphael, called. “It makes me stronger, of course.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” the woman said. “Who’s there?” she asked, without even turning around. She must have heard them come in. “This isn’t a performance.”

“My apologies,” they said, and this time she turned. “I’m a new member of the faculty here. I was getting my bearings and didn’t want to distract you.”

“You failed,” she said. “But go on, take a look around. I’m Shamir, one of the knights.”

“And I’m Raphael,” the blond boy said, his face splitting into a huge grin. “My buddy here is Ignatz. We’re training to be knights some day!”

“It’s very good to meet you!” Ignatz chipped in. He looked nervous, and for just a moment they wondered if he knew about their Crest. He had no reason to, and no one had exactly had an apprehensive reaction to them yet. They just weren’t used to people knowing and it seemed like people in the Church felt like these things mattered.

They brushed those thoughts aside and simply nodded to the three of them. “Don’t let me bother you,” they said, making their way around the rectangle of packed dirt. They took note of the contents of the room and marked that there were no other doors to the area. It was a strange space, half study area and half training grounds.

“You should meet the other knights,” Shamir said, just as they turned to leave. “There’s a security meeting later. You need to know about those things, so come along. It’s here, on the hour.”

“Noted,” they said, leaving the three of them to get back to their training with a short wave. Back to their task for the time being, then. They headed up, past the building they’d just explored, and over to the north side of the main monastery area.

There was a graveyard. Growing up on the move, the mercenaries who had died in the company had never been buried in a plot with many others like this, so Byleth had to admit they were curious. 

Most of the markings on the graves had rubbed off, and most of them were adorned only by bare earth and the whispers of a past they’d once lived, now long forgotten. But one grave caught Byleth’s attention.

In the uppermost corner of the graveyard, next to the wall which separated them from the sharp drop down below, there was a headstone with flowers at its base. They were of many different colours, and Byleth recognised one or two as wildflowers from the monastery grounds.

The name was obscured, rubbed off to the point of being illegible, but the date was clear. 1139-1159. They felt...inexplicably sad, seeing it. This person had lived for less time than they had now been dead. How much had the world changed, while they laid in the earth? How much had this person missed out on experiencing?

They examined the flowers closer, just for a moment. Amongst the blooms was a woven tie to hold them together, adorned with beads. They squinted at it, frowned, and reached for the woven band that tied their hair back. Pulling it out, they compared the two, and it was exactly the same. The tie had been made for them by their father, so these flowers…

This person had been dead for twenty one years. Their father cared very little for the Church. So how had he known this person, why did he take the time to remember them, leave flowers for them? They wished they could just ask. They wished they knew who this person was. Why they were important to their father.

There was so much they wished their father had told them. Why had he seen fit to keep them from the world, keep them from this place where, had they been almost anyone else in the world, they surely would have spent much of their life? They didn’t understand, and they wished they did.

They stood at the grave, thinking, wondering, until the bell chimed, marking the hour. They concealed a sigh and started to move; they supposed they’d have to get back to learning more. Maybe, with time, some answers would at least become clear.

The knight’s hall had only a few more people inside when they got there. It was the same three people as before, as well as a tall, broad, older man they hadn’t seen before. “Good afternoon,” he said when they nodded in his direction. “I am Gilbert Pronislav, one of the Knights of Seiros. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise,” they said. “Byleth. I’m a new teacher here, but Shamir thought I should come to this.”

“A wise decision,” he said. “Please, stop us if you have any questions about security when it comes to the students. They are our utmost priority.”

That, at least, was an encouraging sentiment, though Byleth couldn’t help but wonder. Were they more concerned with the safety of the students, or the security of the monastery so they couldn’t get away? How dangerous was the world outside of the monastery, for someone with a Crest, and why was it dangerous?

A moment later, they were joined by Alois, a blonde woman in tow. She came to sit down next to Shamir, and they shared a meaningful look Byleth didn’t quite catch the actual meaning of. Then, the woman turned to them.

“I’m Catherine,” she said, sticking out her hand for them to shake. They did so. She had a very, very firm handshake. She was also very firm on maintaining eye contact. It wasn’t until she let go that she spoke again. “Hm. Lady Rhea mentioned you. Byleth, yes?”

They nodded. “I’m a new teacher here,” they explained. “Mostly for giving students practical instruction.”

She nodded in return. “Well, I have my eye on you,” she said. “You’re a stranger to this place, and I don’t think you quite understand how unusual that is for someone with a Crest.” She was wrong on that count, because they’d had it firmly hammered home that it was, in fact, incredibly unusual for someone with a Crest to have never attended Garreg Mach. Everyone from crown princes to the commoner in poverty attended Garreg Mach if they had a Crest.

“If we could begin,” Seteth said. Byleth hadn’t even noticed him enter the room, but he had, and he sat at the head of the table. “We have rather a lot to get through. Thank you for coming, Professor, I hope you’ll find this useful.”

“To start off we have the report of a suspicious individual within Garreg Mach’s town,” Shamir said. “There’s very little to say on this. We know that they exist, and they go around at night. We also know that they hold hostility towards the Church and flee when approached. They’re yet to enter the monastery and we have no evidence of anyone leaving to speak to them, but it’s a situation we need to keep an eye on.”

“No new leads at all?” Catherine asked. Shamir shook her head.

“I’m dedicating a lot of time to it,” she said, “but whoever the figure is knows we’re onto them, and they seem to know how to avoid us. It would not be unreasonable to assume that our little friend has access to insider knowledge.”

“And any thoughts on who that source could be?” Seteth asked.

“It’s unlikely to be a student, because of the close tabs we keep on them,” she said. “That leaves the two students without Crests as suspects, I’d suppose, along with the boy who visits often.”

“The von Bergliez child,” Alois supplied.

“Potentially,” she said. “The suspects could also include any faculty or staff, so I won’t investigate too intensely. Anything could tip our leak off as to how much, or how little, we know, so I’ll just keep working on that one.”

“Thank you, Shamir,” Seteth said. “The next issue is that of the recent escapade in a routine excursion. Alois?”

“Well, I’m sure you all know most of this,” Alois said. “We, that being Darell and I, took half of the students out on an excursion. The idea was experience of the world beyond the monastery walls, but we were attacked by bandits in the middle of the night and several students were separated from the group. Darell ran off and has not been seen since.”

“We should look for his body,” Shamir said. Ignatz, who Byleth had practically forgotten was even attending, gasped, but no one paid him any mind. “I doubt he’s alive. Are there any other issues with the incident?”

“There is the problem of the students who ran away,” Gilbert said. “It is uncertain as to whether any action should be taken. It has always been made perfectly clear to them that they must be supervised at all times.”

“Their excuse is that they fled in fear of their lives,” Seteth said. “But given their track record, I wonder if they should be permitted on future excursions. It is not as if Riegan needs experience of the world beyond the monastery, and the young Blaiddyd has no need of battle experience.”

“And Lady Hresvelg?” Catherine asked.

“We should think more on her case,” Seteth admitted. “Her approval has already been delayed by a year due to the specific circumstances of the time. It would not do for the Empire to think our treatment of her is unfair.”

There was a general nod of assent around the table, though Byleth had exactly no clue what was being said, really. Most of his judgement had made sense to them, but they were clearly missing some context. “And what about the reports we’ve had on Blaiddyd?” Shamir asked. “Have they been dismissed by the activity?”

“They were never particularly supported,” Gilbert said, letting out a heavy sigh. “But perhaps it is worth asking our new professor about it. Did you have any particular impressions of the three students you encountered in the field?”

They thought for a moment. “They seemed very in control,” they said. “Their Crests were clearly a boon for them in battle. The only moment in which anything went out of control was when a bandit we thought dead attacked one of the students, but I caught them before they could reach her.”

“So it was Edelgard who was attacked?” Raphael asked. Byleth looked up to see something that looked distinctly like concern in his face, and they nodded. “What about the others? Were they all okay?”

“She wasn’t injured,” they explained, “and neither Claude nor Dimitri were nearby when it happened. Otherwise, everything was perfectly fine.”

“From that, I think we can conclude there’s no substance to the accusations from the young Fraldarius,” Seteth said. “Which says rather more about the accuser than the accused.”

Shamir sighed. “We’ve raised those concerns a thousand times over,” she said. “I’ll just put my word in for leaving the boy alone. Whatever problem he has with the Prince is his business.”

“I’d have to agree,” Catherine said. “I train with him often. He’s dedicated and controls himself well.”

At this point, Byleth didn’t think there’d be any point in asking what they all meant. Someone, another student, had accused Dimitri of something; particularly something that involved being unable to control himself. They were sure they would find out which student ‘Fraldarius’ was soon enough, anyway.

Maybe they should tell him how the knights spoke about him. It didn’t feel fair, to them, if he didn’t know. They were clearly discussing something that was very important for his future, after all.

The meeting was adjourned fairly quickly after that. There were some brief discussions about who was going in and out of the monastery most frequently and who would be visiting soon, but other than that the meeting ended soon after.

Byleth went back to their room feeling decidedly strange. For their whole life, the Church had been a body to distrust. The knight were to be feared. And there they were, casually slotting themselves into a space where they had information. Power. Where they could say things about others and they were believed by the very people they had always worried would steal them away from everything.

They had, of course. They’d been taken from their father, from their life, and yet it seemed as if they’d ended up in a position where they had at least a little power. They didn’t understand.

It didn’t feel fair, somehow, but they couldn’t quite put their finger on why they felt like that. It was just another thing they had to navigate. Another thing to figure out. They just wished it could be easy. They wished their father was here.

But he wasn’t, and tomorrow would be another day navigating the world without him, and for that they’d need all their energy. So they slept, and dreamt of a young girl seated all alone.


	5. Chapter 1.3 - Trained for Battle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Byleth takes their first lesson with their students - combat assessments to see the extent of their skills.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is back! It's now been thoroughly planned (hence the fact that there's now a number instead of a ? in the chapter counter) and I'm hoping to have it on a weekly update schedule.

Byleth knew that their first day teaching the class was bound to be eventful. They’d done all they could to prepare up until now, but they were still nervous. They didn’t have teaching experience. They didn’t even have experience talking to commoners all that much, and almost every single one of their students was a noble of some form.

They’d seen students around the monastery a few times in the past couple of days, and each time they’d been met with a smile and a wave. This was their first time properly talking to them though, at least as a teacher. When they stood at the front of the classroom, all of them were there, in front of them, looking...slightly nervous, really. Maybe all of them were just as nervous as they were.

They didn’t imagine that a place like this ever saw much change. It definitely wasn’t anything like anywhere they’d ever been in the past, so maybe it was just completely stuck in the past. Maybe the students weren’t used to meeting new people.

“I’m your new professor,” they said, watching as everyone’s focus immediately shifted to them. “My name is Byleth. I’ll mostly be taking your combat and tactics oriented teaching, but I’m not an experienced teacher, so you may find my methods a little unconventional.”

They watched as one of the students, slightly younger with dark green hair, leaned over to a student with lighter pink hair and said something. They couldn’t hear what it was or what the tone was, but they imagined they’d find out the sentiment soon enough. “We’ll be starting by going to the training grounds. I want to see what everyone can do.”

And there it was; the green haired and pink haired students groaned, and Byleth knew almost exactly the kind of thing that had been said only a few moments before. They caught the eye of the girl, and she smiled brightly at them before standing up to follow all the others to the training grounds. Almost immediately, they noticed a prominent limp. “Is everything okay?” they asked.

“Oh, Professor,” she said, her tone slightly strained. She looked up at them with an expression Byleth could only describe as pleading. “I’ve hurt my ankle, you see. I twisted it yesterday when moving some books because I’m terribly frail. I’m really, really sorry to disappoint.”

They looked at her. For some reason, they got the sense she was lying, though nothing she’d actually done had suggested that. “Well, I doubt we’ll have time to go through everyone today,” they said cheerily, “but I’ll make sure that someone proficient in some kind of healing magic sees to you. Two birds with one stone, yes?”

“Oh, thank you so much, Professor,” she said, another very bright smile on her face, though it seemed somehow more...hollow. That response probably wasn’t the one she’d been hoping for, then. “But I don’t know if you want to bother with little old me. I don’t really have any talents to speak of.”

“That’s necessary to know in itself,” they said, trying to keep their tone as neutral as possible. They didn’t believe her. Try as she might to hide it, her uniform couldn’t disguise that she was very muscular. She clearly had upper body strength, even if she wasn’t aware she was showing it. “I’ll have to see the extent of and limits of your talents, for the sake of your own safety if nothing else.”

Now, finally, the girl frowned, but she recovered quickly. “That’s awfully kind of you,” she said. “I’m Hilda, by the way. Hilda Valentine Goneril.”

Ah yes, Hilda. Now that name was familiar, and it fit almost exactly with the impression Claude had given them. “It’s good to meet you, Hilda,” they said, stopping briefly to nod at the person standing in front of the gates to the training grounds. He nodded in return and opened them up, letting the whole class stream in. “I hope you feel better soon.”

The training grounds were going to be an incredibly useful resource, that much Byleth had known from the moment they saw them. They weren’t expansive facilities, but they were something, and they were big enough to fit the whole class. The practise weapons weren’t all that bad, either. It wasn’t perfect, but it was about as good as they could get in a place like this, they supposed.

“What are your thoughts on fighting me?” they asked. They’d initially planned to pair students up, but when they remembered just how talented Claude, Edelgard, and Dimitri had seemed when they’d fought alongside them, they wondered if they should maybe just fight the students themselves.

“I’ll go first,” one student said, stepping forwards. His hair was a dark blue, twisted into a tight knot on top of his head, and though he weren’t exactly an imposing figure, his gaze told Byleth everything they needed to know. This person was sure of his skills.

“And who are you, for the sake of me learning everyone’s names?” they asked.

“Felix,” he said, and Byleth remembered that name from Dimitri’s introductions. The one they were meant to ‘keep an eye on’. “But that’s not all that important. Fight me and see who I am.”

They nodded. It was a sentiment they could get behind, at least. A sentiment they could identify with. Sometimes, they wished that people would just fight them instead of complicating everything with words that had triple meanings depending on how well you knew them. Fighting was simpler.

“Everyone else can watch, if you could just form a loose circle around us,” they said. “Felix, you wield a sword?” Felix looked momentarily surprised, but nodded. It was his stance that had clued them in, the way he had moved even as he stepped forwards. He was fast, and powerful. Suited primarily to a sword or lance, they felt, so they were glad the guess was on point. “If you could get both of us one?”

He didn’t even ask them what kind of sword they usually wielded, instead just picking out two middle-weight swords and tossing one to them. He’d picked out something perhaps slightly lighter than they were used to, but that much was something they had anticipated. People were often surprised, when they were a mercenary, about the size of the weapons they wielded.

“On three,” they said. “One, two-”

Felix moved early, and he was fast, but Byleth was ready. He was impulsive, sure of his own strength. And while they were yet to know if his estimation of his abilities was correct, they were ready as much as they could be.

He was very fast, and his strikes were just as powerful as they’d predicted. Once, twice, three times in the space of their bout, they saw the flash of his Crest. They only managed to use theirs once or twice, when they were tiring and really needed to; they were unused to using it in combat, and worried that too hard a strike would hurt Felix.

Felix, however, was not holding back. He threw himself into the fight as if it were the real thing, and Byleth could nearly immediately identify that he had real battle experience. He knew a human fighter far better than they’d expected of someone who had most likely been here since he was a child.

Despite his experience, however, and despite his many strengths as a fighter, he tired faster than they’d anticipated. Not in terms of stamina; he seemed to have plenty of that. But within a few of the blows that they actually managed to land on his body (one to the arm as he withdrew slightly too late, one to the chest that made him stagger backwards with one arm on his ribs), he yielded.

“You’re stronger,” he called. “I can’t beat you.” They hadn’t pinned him down, hadn’t hit a vital point, but he hadn’t let them go any further with what was essentially both a lesson and a demonstration. Odd. They wondered, for a moment, if that was the norm in the way they’d all been taught here, not to push beyond their limits, and then brushed it aside. They’d find out soon enough, no need to look for things that weren’t there.

“Well fought,” they said, as he went to put his sword back on the rack and went to rejoin the crowd. He stood next to a shorter girl, her hair purple and fluffed up slightly beyond belief. She jumped at his presence but settled down almost immediately. “Are you an experienced fighter?”

“I’ve fought in real battles a handful of times,” he said, a lot of the confidence he’d carried himself with before having completely vanished. He didn’t seem shy, exactly, just...Byleth couldn’t put their finger on it. “I’ll beat you next time.”

“I look forward to it,” they said. “How about...well, does anyone else want to go next?”

“I’ll have a go,” a girl said, stepping forwards. Her hair was white, and she was, well, tiny. “I don’t fight with a sword, I fight with magic.”

“You probably don’t want to fight her head on, Teach,” Claude said. “Lysithea here might be about as imposing as a squirrel but her magic really packs a punch.”

“It doesn’t have to be focused on just one person, either,” she said, shooting Claude with a smile Byleth could only describe as wicked. “If you’d prefer, Professor, I could just show you.”

“I’d prefer to fight,” they said. “I don’t doubt your strength, but I’m not half bad with magic myself.” They’d had little chance to practise it properly, because their father had always preferred to focus on teaching them the sword, but they could use magic. They had it on a tap, somewhere inside them, within something they didn’t quite understand and didn’t like to dabble in too much. It felt linked to their Crest.

Lysithea, unlike Felix, waited for their countdown to be complete before letting magic crackle at her fingertips. She had a sword in her left hand, too, but her dominant weapon was clearly magic. Powerful magic, too, judging by the orb of pure darkness that shot past their ear. They’d have to be careful.

It was unlike magic they’d ever seen before, full of a power they’d never encountered. Yet another thing that was brand new, something they didn’t understand. They’d have to ask Lysithea when the match was over.

Lysithea didn’t have many weaknesses in a battle between two mages. She took a blow or two with barely a flinch, and she was light on her feet. If this had been a physical battle, she would have lost within moments, but at a distance, she knew exactly what she was doing. This was where she was best, and she knew it. She’d set the match up to show her at her strongest.

Her only weakness, however, became clearly evident only a few minutes in. She stretched out her hand, and the magical energy at her fingers flickered out. She stared at her hand for a moment, flexed again, and nothing appeared. “Ah,” she said, a soft but slightly strained laugh forcing its way from her mouth. “That’s my limit I’m afraid, Professor.”

They smiled and nodded. Against any armoured opponent, low in any kind of resilience against magic, the match would have long been over. Even as Lysithea made her way back into the group, looking slightly dejected, Byleth got the distinct sense that she was underestimating her power. She just needed a little more stamina.

The matches came thick and fast, and Byleth didn’t cease to be impressed by what they encountered. Dimitri was strong, Edelgard carried a significant strength behind her blows, Claude was even faster than they’d expected. Their classmates, too, were no pushovers. A slightly older boy, Sylvain, managed to land a wicked strike to their side that would definitely bruise, while the accuracy of the young archer Bernadetta was unexpectedly impressive.

These students were trained well. They’d been trained for combat, yet barely experienced it at all, and Byleth couldn’t help but wonder why. What was the point of teaching them so thoroughly how to fight, how to use their Crests in battle?

They doubted that every single one of these students were natural fighters. Byleth knew nothing of their other talents, of course, and they didn’t know how much they were going to become acquainted with over the next few months as merely their combat and tactics teacher, but they were sure some of them were better at other things.

Did combat training begin at eight? It was something familiar for Byleth; they were a mercenary, and if you were going to fight for a living it was better to start earlier than later. They knew that. But if the Church feared the power of Crests so much, why was every child with a Crest being trained to use that power in combat?

There was something about it that didn’t quite add up to them, and there was one bout in particular that made them think. The student with green hair who had been talking to Hilda had, when asked to fight them, declined.

“I don’t fight,” came their reply.

“Can you?” they asked.

The student yawned. “I suppose. But I really would rather not. I spent plenty of time watching other people fight already, and it’s rather tiring. Could I be excused from the activity?”

They looked the student up and down. Tall, gangly, pale. Definitely not someone who spent a lot of time outside training. “I don’t know how much of a good idea that is,” they said. “You don’t have to do it for long, I just need to get a sense of your abilities.”

“There’s no point, you know,” he said. “I don’t fight, and my Crest has nothing at all to do with fighting. It’s practically irrelevant to anything you would have to teach me, and that teaching is irrelevant to my life.”

“Linhardt, do you really need to do this now?” Edelgard asked. She was at the other side of the circle to the younger student, and she was glaring at him.

“Why not now?” they shot back, the small smile on their face having turned into a frown. “Why should I do this now, and make excuses as to why I shouldn’t have to later? That doesn’t make any sense, Edelgard.”

“What weapon do you wield in training?” they asked.

“I don’t,” Linhardt replied. “I never wield a weapon in training, because I don’t train. If I do, then I just use magic.”

“Magic it is, then,” they said. They tossed the sword they’d used to fight Hilda with behind them and summoned magic into their fingers once more. “Are you ready?”

“No,” he said simply, but he did dodge out of the way of their first, slow attack. They shot once more, and again, and both of those hit him, but he seemed decidedly unbothered. “Do I really have to do this?”

“Yes,” they said firmly. “I need to know things about your abilities. On the battlefield, sometimes you don’t get the choice as to whether you’ll have to fight or not.”

“And if I have no intention of ever being on a battlefield?” they asked.

“Not everyone chooses where they end up in life,” they said. “Not everyone has the luxury of choice. And even if you do, sometimes things change. Sometimes your goals change, or what you have to do to achieve them does. Sometimes, other people act and completely take the choice out of your hands. In that situation, you need to be able to fight. Even if it’s just a little.”

Linhardt had clearly got bored of listening to them speak. His expression didn’t betray any kind of concentration, but Byleth knew that didn’t mean he was completely ignoring them. He also looked like he didn’t care about this match, yet he’d managed to shrug off all their spells and fire a few more back in return. None of them had hit, yet, but they could see it was only a matter of time.

Because they’d been watching Linhardt. They’d been watching how, through his yawns and protestations, he’d seen everything they did. Out of everyone in these training grounds, Linhardt probably had the best chance of beating them.

He didn’t beat them, of course, because his heart absolutely was not in it. He couldn’t care less as to whether he won or lost this match, as long as it was over as soon as possible, and it was far easier to lose than to win. He tired fairly quickly, and tapped out immediately after he started showing much sign of fatigue.

“Satisfied now?” they asked. Byleth gave them a knowing look. “I see.”

They wrapped up the class after that and let the students head off for the rest of their days with only a short assignment to complete; write down what part of their combat abilities they wanted to improve most in the coming year, so they could help them with it. Byleth set it more to see if they would actually do it than to find out what they wanted - they didn’t need to see that in writing.

The whole lesson left them with ever more conflicted feelings about the nature of this place, the nature of their employment here. What were they actually doing for these children? How much did they really need to be taught how to fight? Some of them really weren’t fighters by nature, they could tell that from only a single sparring session, but they all had to learn anyway.

What right did they have, to dictate what Linhardt did with his time when he clearly had no interest in fighting? Why did they have to be able to defend themselves from attacks? Most nobles would never learn. Even fewer members of the educated class would.

What was it about Crests that made this so necessary? And if it wasn’t necessary, then what did that mean? Did they even want to know? Did they have a duty to know?

Byleth was tired. They wished that a simple answer to these kinds of questions could even exist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick note: Linhardt uses he/him and they/them pronouns! I tried to make it as non confusing as possible without having to take time out of the narrative for pronoun discussions so hopefully that worked


	6. Chapter 2.1 - The Task at Hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Byleth spends a free day at Garreg Mach, but 'free' is perhaps a relative term. They have a lot of things to do, and lots of people to talk to.
> 
> -
> 
> When they’d collected some food, Byleth made their way to sit with Sylvain, who took one look at Christie and shot them something between an annoyed and fond look. Exasperated was perhaps the right word. ‘I said to bring a beautiful girl,’ he mouthed.
> 
> ‘You said cute,’ they mouthed back. He blinked, and then nodded.

“It’s good to see you again, Professor,” was the greeting that the Archbishop met them with, and Byleth wondered if it really was good. Just for a moment. But then they reminded themselves that if they questioned everything they were just going to get their thoughts tied in knots. That wouldn’t help a thing.

“Good morning,” they returned with a nod. “There was something you wanted me for?”

“Ah, I see you are not exactly one for small talk,” Rhea said, and they shook their head. Her face remained very neutral at that. “Very well. I wanted to introduce to you the other one of your duties as a teacher here. As a combat and tactics instructor, you are to be in charge of the monthly tasks the students must undertake to show their abilities.”

“Is that what my encounter at Remire was?” they asked.

“Yes,” Rhea said. “Though combat was not intended in that exercise. They were simply meant to plot a route somewhere, travel, and stay overnight having fed themselves and constructed shelter. The task this month is of a rather different nature, and one I am sure you’re used to handling.

“The bandits you engaged last month were able to elude capture and break past a fortified point in the mountain range surrounding Garreg Mach, making their way into the Red Canyon. This is a sacred site of the Church of Seiros, and their intrusion here is blasphemy of the highest order. Your task is to drive the bandits out before the end of the month, and kill all those who resist.”

They nodded. It sounded...easy, really. They’d been more than a match for the bandits with only three students, themselves, and their father. No matter how well trained and experienced their father was, a group of so many students would be more than a match for a group of bandits. “Is that the full task?” they asked. They had a busy day to get to, and they were sure Rhea’s was the same. There was no sense in lingering.

“Yes,” she said. “Though one more thing before you go to your day. When you do go to the canyon, be aware that its resonance with the faith, and its resonance with Crests, is particularly strong. Take care, and keep an eye on your students.”

“I understand,” they said. They did not understand. They didn’t know what they were looking out for when ‘keeping an eye on their students’. They’d been informed on multiple occasions that there were eyes on Felix, eyes on Linhardt. But they didn’t actually know what they were meant to be seeing when they watched.

It didn’t matter. It meant they could interact with their students without any concerns that would affect how they understood them. And that suited Byleth just fine.

Once they exited Rhea’s audience chamber, their weekend was free, and Byleth had plenty of things to do. They’d had a little time to do things like meet their students and get their things in order, but a lot of their time had also been dedicated to preparing lessons and working out where every room in the monastery actually was.

Now, though, they finally had some time to themselves. Except it wasn’t really just for them, because of course it wasn’t. They now lived in an intensely closed community where everyone knew each other and almost no one was afraid to ask for favours. So, naturally, they had several tasks to do.

The first person to approach them was Sylvain. He’d made an impression on them as a bright, cheerful young man who was, for some reason that was yet to be disclosed to them, a little older than his fellow students. That said, he wasn’t the most mature student they had, but that was just one of his quirks.

“Morning, Professor!” he called to them almost as soon as they left their room. “It’s a lovely day today.”

“Good morning, Sylvain,” they said. As they made their way up to the training grounds for some morning exercises, he followed them. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“Oh, nothing much,” he said, but the knowing grin on his face told Byleth otherwise. Sylvain was, so far as they had gathered from their handful of interactions with him, a very smiley person, yet his smiles expressed far more than happiness. “I was wondering if you wanted to get lunch today.”

“...in the dining hall?” they asked. Technically, students were allowed out to the town a little further down the mountain, but they could only go alongside a knight. They were not a knight.

Sylvain let out a hollow-sounding chuckle. “Yeah, it’ll have to be,” he said. “It would be a pleasure to have your company and be able to bend the ear of our lovely, mysterious new professor. It wouldn’t hurt if there was a cute girl present either.”

Byleth looked at him. Sylvain’s expression betrayed no hint of a joke; he was asking them to eat lunch with him and a girl. “I have other things to do before lunch,” they said, “but you’re welcome to join me when I do go to eat.”

“And about the pretty girl?” Sylvain asked, and then he winked to put the lecherous cherry on top of a very flirty cake.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” they said, pushing open the training ground doors. Inside, as was normal for any of their visits to this place that occurred outside of class times, Felix was hitting a training dummy with a wooden sword. Sylvain immediately detached from their side to go and bother him, leaving them alone to do their morning drills.

Once that was done, they left, sparing Felix and Sylvain (who had given up on sparring and were now just squabbling - the words being thrown around were harsh, but Byleth was unsure if they were really meant to hurt) a glance as they returned their training sword to the rack of weapons.

Their next task was physically less arduous, but something they were painfully inexperienced in; at the end of the week’s lessons, Dedue had approached them and asked for a little assistance in planting some seeds. It was the most they’d heard out of him the whole time they’d been teaching him - he struck them as a very quiet young man. An anomaly at Garreg Mach, too, by virtue of not having a Crest and not being from Fódlan.

It was a quiet task, and very different from practising sword thrusts while listening to Felix and Sylvain trade barbs. Dedue didn’t speak to them other than to give them instructions as to where to plant something next or how much water to give each individual plant.

Byleth supposed it was...nice. Far more peaceful than anything they’d done here so far. They were used to everything having a thin veneer of urgency, of unspoken tensions. This had none of that. It was them, the plants, and the quiet sound of birds nesting in the trees outside.

When they were nearly done, though, Dedue spoke. “I must thank you for your services to his Highness,” he said. “I was unable to be there when his life was threatened, but you stepped in to save him with no knowledge of who he was. For that, you have my thanks.”

“It was no problem,” they said. It wasn’t like they were going to leave people who asked for help to just die in the middle of the night.

“I will thank you anyway,” Dedue said. “His Highness means more to the future of Faerghus than can be expressed in words. If there is anything I can do for you to express my gratitude, you need only say the word.”

“I don’t need anything,” they said. At least, not anything that Dedue could give them. They needed to see their father again, to know he was okay. They needed to understand the nature of this place, and if the staff were friend or foe. They needed to know where to go from here. But Dedue couldn’t give them any of that, and they knew that. “But I will tell you if I do.”

“Thank you,” he said. “And thank you for your assistance today. There are not many who would so willingly spend so much time with a man of Duscur.”

“It doesn’t matter to me,” they said firmly. They knew about what had happened in Duscur, of course, but Dedue must have been merely a child when it occurred. He had no part in the whole business. “Have a good day, Dedue.”

They didn’t smile, and Dedue didn’t smile in return, but a small amount of warmth bubbled in Byleth’s chest when they turned towards the greenhouse exit. They didn’t have a hope of knowing a way forward yet, or an answer to all of their questions, but for now, building up bonds with their students worked just fine for them.

The gardening brought them up to the late morning, with just less than an hour left before lunch, so Byleth took the opportunity to head over to the stables. They had quite a love for horses, though by necessity it was difficult for a mercenary group to keep more than a few at any one time. As such, they were slightly enchanted by the possibility of taking care of horses.

There was also the wonder of pegasi. Their mercenary group had been almost entirely male, so they had only seen pegasi a handful of times before their arrival at Garreg Mach. And, surprisingly enough, pegasi seemed to like them too.

A fair few of their students also very much enjoyed the company of horses, it seemed, because within a moment of entering the stables they’d spotted two of them. In the first stall, taking care of a large chestnut horse, was Ferdinand, who waved cheerily to them when he spotted them. Two stalls along held Marianne and a grey horse whose mane she was gently running a brush through.

“Good morning, Marianne,” they said, waving to her. She jumped and, moments after looking up, hurriedly looked away again.

“Good morning, Professor,” she said. “I hope you’re having a good day.” Byleth had wanted the opportunity to get to know her a little better, but she didn’t seem like she wanted company in that moment, so they opted to leave her alone.

From there, they moved down to the pegasus enclosures, where they could now see the figures of two of their students. Remembering the advice they’d received on approaching pegasi, they moved slowly, trying to keep their body language open and unthreatening.

As they approached, they could hear the voices of the students - Ingrid and Christie. “No, Christie, you need to move a little slower than that,” Ingrid said. “If you move too fast, you’ll pull the brush with too much force and hurt them.”

“Like this?” Christie asked, blowing a strand of brown hair from her face as she moved towards the pegasus again. Then, with gentle movements, she pulled the brush down the very outer hairs of the pegasus’ mane.

Ingrid chuckled. “A little. You can be a bit firmer than that, or you won’t really manage to comb anything and all the dirt deep in the mane will stay.”

“Uh huh,” she said, sticking her tongue out in what Byleth presumed was a look of intense concentration as she moved to brush the mane again. When she was done, she looked up, and smiled when her eyes met theirs. “Oh, hi Professor!” she called.

“Good morning Christie, Ingrid,” they said with a wave. Ingrid nodded to them as they approached, still taking it slowly. “How are you doing this morning?”

“Ingrid was showing me how to brush a pegasus properly,” Christie said, a very solemn look on her face. Byleth hadn’t asked anyone how old she was, but they knew enough about judging people’s ages to know that she was significantly younger than any of the other students.

“She’s too nervous,” Ingrid explained. “They have no reason to reject her, but she doesn’t like approaching them on her own anyway. So I offered to help.”

“Pegasi really, really, really love Ingrid,” Christie said. “She’s so good at looking after them.”

“I have a lot of experience,” she said. “I’ve had horses since I was little, and looked after the pegasi since I came here. So you’ll get lots of experience in the next few years looking after them just like I did.”

“What if I’m not here for years?” Christie asked, and Ingrid hurriedly shushed her. “I’m not a baby, Ingrid,” she said firmly. “I can say that.”

“You can say what you like,” she replied, “but you do need to think about what those things mean to other people. Like the Professor.”

“She can say what she thinks,” Byleth said, hoping that cutting in wasn’t a bad idea. They wanted their students to trust them, and if that meant letting them say things with unfortunate implications about how they felt about being here...well, they’d have to live with any potential consequences of that.

“See?” Christie crowed, clearly not looking at the expression on Ingrid’s face as she fixed Byleth with what could only be called a stare. “Told you, Ingrid!”

“You definitely did,” she said, but her eyes didn’t move from Byleth as she spoke. “Just remember that our new Professor is unlike almost anyone at this monastery, okay?”

Christie scoffed. “Anyone can see that.” As she spoke, she smiled brightly at Byleth, and they were reminded of Edelgard’s assessment that she was a great sister but perhaps not the ideal princess. They were seeing that now, they supposed.

After that, their conversation settled into a rhythm that Byleth didn’t need to contribute to all that much. They helped fetch different things that Christie and Ingrid needed to take care of the pegasi and occasionally lent a hand when needed. It was easy and, while it was not exactly a familiar task for them, helped them get to know the two students they were working with.

When the bell struck, they were reminded of their agreement with Sylvain to eat lunch with him. “I’ll head off now, unless either of you wanted to eat with me?” they asked. “I’d stay to finish the last pen with you, but I promised Sylvain I’d meet him at lunch.”

“I’d rather eat with Lorenz,” Ingrid said with a chuckle. “I’ll finish up the last pen. You can go with the Professor if you like, Christie.”

“I was going to anyway,” she said, jumping down from the stool she’d been using to brush the pegasus. “You don’t order me around, Ingrid!” Her voice was light and she was clearly joking, but Ingrid huffed anyway. When Byleth looked over at her, she was smiling.

“I’ll see you later, Christie. Professor.” She waved, before picking up a different brush and starting on the pegasus’ mane while they left.

“Ingrid is so cool,” Christie said, half whispering as they made their way to the dining hall. “She pretends like she isn’t, but she knows everything about pegasi! And knight’s stories too. She acts all scary and everything but she’s actually really nice. Don’t let her scare you.”

They smiled. They honestly hadn’t been at all intimidated by Ingrid, despite knowing how capable she was. She was just so...caring. Even when she was rude to people during their lessons, it was always because someone was taking stupid risks or potentially hurting another. “I won’t,” they said.

“Good,” she replied. “Even Hubert talks to Ingrid, and he usually acts like he hates everyone.”

“He doesn’t?” they asked. They did know that Hubert didn’t hate everyone, of course; the way he looked at Edelgard told them plenty enough about his devotion. But they had managed to get the impression that he hated pretty much everyone else.

“Nuh-uh,” she said, shaking her head fervently. “He’s a huge softie really. He just tries to act really intense otherwise no one would be more afraid of him than El. Don’t tell him I said that though, he gets kinda weird and creepy about it.”

Weird and creepy was definitely more of the impression Byleth had got from their very few interactions with him, but they weren’t really surprised to learn there was more to the situation. “I won’t say a word,” they said, and Christie grinned at them.

“You’re pretty cool too, Professor,” she said. “What’s it like, living in the real world? Does it make you cool?”

“Well, I don’t think Ingrid’s experienced much more of the world outside the monastery than you have,” they said with a chuckle. They liked Christie a lot, and she was a sweet kid, but they didn’t want to say too much about their own life. That was something they didn’t want to share. It was between them and their father, and the rest of the mercenaries.

“She has!” Christie objected. “She said she used to spend loads of time outside when she was young and she had a pretty normal life. I was shut up inside the stupid Imperial palace.”

“What would the architects think if you called it stupid?” they asked. They’d reached the dining hall, so they hoped Christie wouldn’t bring up anything too sensitive while they were there.

“They’d complain in their dusty old voices about how I’m not sophisticated enough to understand the ‘finer points of architecture’,” she said, waving her hands around as she spoke. “I think it’s silly. The hallways are so huge you could fit horses down them, so why not just make those bits outside? It just makes the whole place really cold in winter.”

When they’d collected some food, Byleth made their way to sit with Sylvain, who took one look at Christie and shot them something between an annoyed and fond look. Exasperated was perhaps the right word. ‘I said to bring a beautiful girl,’ he mouthed.

‘You said cute,’ they mouthed back. He blinked, and then nodded.

“You got me there, Professor,” he said with a laugh. “I did say that. You have permission to make fun of me.”

“No one needs permission to make fun of you, Sylvain,” Hilda chimed in from a few seats away. Sylvain let out a slightly offended-sounding noise, but it lacked any malice, and he smiled brightly at Christie when she came to sit down.

“Hi, Christie,” he said, and she waved to him when she’d put her plate down on the table. “How’s your morning been?”

“Good!” she said. “Ingrid was teaching me how to look after the pegasi. Is it true that they don’t like you at all?”

“They don’t like men, as a general rule,” Sylvain said. “Manuela once told me it was because men give off ‘bad feelings’, but those things won’t even go near Dedue and he’s the gentlest person here.”

“Dedue is pretty big,” Christie said. “Will they not like me if I get big?” She started stabbing at the vegetables on her plate one by one, not actually picking any of them more than a short way off the plate.

“I’m sure they’ll still like you,” Sylvain said. “They don’t like men who are kids, either. Pegasi have never, ever liked Felix, not for as long as I’ve known him. And I’ve known him forever. Well, longer than you’ve been around, anyway.”

Christie nodded, and though she’d stopped attacking her vegetables, she looked a lot more subdued now. Byleth knew themselves that pegasi liking or not liking certain kinds of people was very...variable. To say the least. But the ones they’d helped take care of today hadn’t had any kind of problem with Christie.

“More important than anything with an animal is your bond with them,” Byleth said, “and your capacity for kindness towards them. If you treat a pegasus with kindness, it will always let you into their heart if you try enough, and if you’ve spent lots of time around them, I’m sure they can tell that you’re able to look after them.”

“I suppose,” Christie said. She sounded a little dejected still, but she’d perked up quite a bit.

“So you know what we did,” they said, “but what did you do this morning, Sylvain?”

“Oh, not much,” he said with a shrug. “Sparred with Felix. Was beaten by Felix, as usual. I pestered some guards for the latest news from the town, but they didn’t have much to say other than those bandits headed into Zanado and talk of tensions in Faerghus. Like there isn’t always tension in Faerghus.”

At that, his gaze strayed towards where Dimitri was sat next to Dedue, Claude across the table from him. But his gaze returned quickly, and the moment of slightly tense quiet in the conversation passed when he started talking again. “And then I continued with a book I was reading. I think you’d like it, Christie, there’s a lady knight.”

“Can I have the book when you’re done?” she asked, excitement in her voice. “Or did someone else reserve it?”

“Nah, you’re welcome to it when I’m finished,” he said. “You didn’t happen to bring any books with you, did you, Professor?”

“A couple,” they said. They hadn’t been a particularly keen reader for most of their life, and books were expensive. As were candles, or any other source of light, and they tended to be quite busy during the day, so they hadn’t owned very many. There’d never been much point.

“Well, don’t let anyone know about that,” Sylvain said with a laugh. “People will be bugging you to read them. The only novels that end up here are usually the ones the merchants bring, so they’re pretty in demand. Unless you want to make a lot of friends very quickly, I’d keep it to yourself.”

They nodded, filing the information away. They had no objection to people borrowing their books, but...well. They had an allowance every month for ‘class materials’. Perhaps that would be able to cover a novel every now and then.

Lunch passed easily, and they enjoyed the time they spent with the two. When they were just finishing up their food, a young girl they hadn’t seen before approached them. “Hi Flayn!” Christie said with a wave, and her bright smile returned.

“Good afternoon, Christie and Sylvain. And I understand that you are the new professor?” She spoke in a curious way, and Byleth gained the distinct impression that they knew her from somewhere. They just couldn’t fathom where.

“Yes,” they said, nodding to her. “My name is Byleth. I don’t believe we’ve met before?”

“I am Flayn!” she said. “I am Seteth’s younger sister. I am not a student here, I just live here. I wanted to introduce myself, but I would also...appreciate your help with a task.”

“Of course,” they said. If there was anything they could do to get in Seteth’s good books, they’d do it, honestly. Every time they saw him, he gave them a glare like they’d personally killed every member of his family (which really, really didn’t make sense seeing as Flayn was right here).

It turned out that Flayn just really wanted some fish, but she was worried she wasn’t strong enough to pull one out of the water. Considering how small she was, Byleth understood her fears fairly well, and they were happy to lend a hand. They hadn’t had much time to fish with their father, but it was always something he’d enjoyed. The feeling of the focus needed for fishing, pulling up the line...it was nostalgic, really.

Flayn was happy, too. It was good, seeing someone so unreservedly happy. It made them feel like they were doing the right thing. It wasn’t anything like the mixed feelings they got when they spoke to their students and realised how unhappy some of them were, the reservations they all had about their place in the world.

When they left Flayn to cook her fish, she was beaming from ear to ear. It was nice that some things didn’t need to be complicated, at least.

By the end of the day, they were exhausted. Getting into bed, Byleth wondered how anyone could survive living here for years upon years. It was meant to have been their free day, but they felt like they’d seen just about every inhabitant of the monastery and gone to every building today. They were tired, and they still had a lot to think about. A lot of things they were still discovering about this tiny world where everyone knew each other and everyone had thoughts they didn’t know if Byleth could be trusted with.

But it wasn’t the time for that now. They didn’t have enough information. They hadn’t formed enough bonds. So they closed their eyes, and dreamt of great armies clashing on a dark field.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Relevant to this chapter and the conversation on pegasi: Ingrid, Christie, and Felix are all trans.


	7. Chapter 2.2 - Outside the Walls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Byleth takes their students out of Garreg Mach for the first time since they arrived. The task is simple, yet somehow complicates things ever more.

“Right, is everyone ready to go?” they asked. Byleth stood, at the end of the month, at the head of a group of all of their students, accompanied by a small contingent of soldiers.

Their route, mapped ahead of time by Byleth, Shamir, and Sylvain (who appeared to have something of a talent for navigation), was to take them down the mountains Garreg Mach was placed in, through a forest for about a day of travel, and then into the canyon where the bandits had camped.

The route was fine: simple, uncomplicated, easily defensible, and relatively unaffected by anything like the weather. They could walk two or three abreast for most of the route without straying from the path, and the plan was for Alois to take the lead (with Sylvain there for good measure) while Byleth and Ignatz brought up the rear in case anyone broke off from the group.

That meant that Byleth was stood at the back of a long train of students, watching Ignatz attempt a conversation with perhaps the most reserved member of their party.

“You’re Marianne, aren’t you?” Ignatz asked, and Marianne nodded. She didn’t say anything. “How, um- how are you doing today?”

“Fine,” Marianne said, her gaze fixed on her feet.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Ignatz replied. There was a decidedly awkward pause. “I, uh, I’ve seen you in the stables a lot. Do you like horses?” Marianne nodded again. “They’re lovely creatures! I can get a little nervous around them myself, on occasion, but I’m trying to become a more confident rider. Would it be possible for you to give me some tips on how to be better at caring for horses?”

Marianne bit her lip. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” she said. “You’d be better off talking to someone else. I’m sorry.”

“Oh...I’m sorry,” he said. “To have bothered you, I mean. I’m sure you-” With that, he cut himself off, and looked down at the ground, a look on his face that Byleth wouldn’t hesitate to describe as crestfallen. Maybe it was time to step in.

They waved, and Ignatz jumped, immediately trying to perk himself up a little. “Good morning, Ignatz,” they said. He shifted, clearly slightly uncomfortable. Or maybe just awkward.

“Hello, Professor!” he said. “How are you doing today? Ready to lead your students?”

They nodded. They’d never commanded forces in battle before, that was always a job left to their father or another senior mercenary in their group, but they knew the basics. They had a good idea as to what to do. “How are you feeling?”

Immediately, Ignatz started fiddling with the hem of his knight’s tunic. “I’m willing to admit I’m feeling a little nervous,” he said.

“Why?” they asked. Ignatz wouldn’t be in the knights, even as a trainee, if he wasn’t at least a competent fighter.

Ignatz’s gaze shot to the floor again. “I think it’s natural to be a little nervous when marching into a battle where no holds will be barred,” he said. “We’re there to kill the bandits. They won’t hesitate to do the same to us if they have the chance, and I’m not quite used to laying my life on the line.” For a moment, there was silence between them. “Wouldn’t you say it’s normal to be apprehensive, Marianne?”

Marianne, who had appeared to Byleth as if she was trying to avoid being noticed as much as possible, looked up with a start, paused for a moment, and then nodded. Two strands of hair fell out of her loose bun as she moved. “I am too,” she said. “I’m no good at fighting, really…”

“I would disagree,” Byleth said immediately. Marianne had called herself a healer when Byleth had sparred with each of their students, but they’d also taken a look at the level of faith magic she was studying. She was far beyond something as simple as healing, and the power behind her incantations was nothing to be sniffed at.

“I agree with Byleth, Marianne,” Ignatz said, shooting the girl a smile. Her cheeks flushed, but there was a firm frown fixed on her face, and she kept her eyes downcast. “I think you’re fantastic with spells, and you’re an important healer in our group too. Don’t sell yourself short!”

Marianne was starting to look decidedly uncomfortable, so Byleth decided to chip in with something else. “I would say that statement applies to you too, Ignatz,” Byleth said cheerfully. This time, Ignatz flushed. “Don’t underestimate yourself; through that, you’ll find it a lot easier to live up to your talents and protect others.”

They’d hit the nail on the head there, they imagined, because Ignatz stammered his way through a thanks before they lapsed into a comfortable silence, walking onwards through the forest.

When evening fell, they broke off from the main path and found a clearing out by a stream to set up camp in. This was the part, Gilbert had mentioned, where the most trust was placed in the students. With a group so large, any one of them could run off at this point.

No one had said as much, but Byleth felt like that was the reason they had people keeping watch over the camp. Vigilance was important, of course, but a small cluster of tents with no real valuables around on a road regularly patrolled by Knights of Seiros? They didn’t need three people on watch.

That said, they had three people on watch. They were up first, alongside Alois and Hubert. The first hour or so was mostly full of listening to the students in various tents finally settle down and go to sleep; Byleth should have known that teenagers would be the same as mercenaries in that respect, and yet it almost came as a surprise. Some of them - particularly Lysithea and Christie - had practically been falling asleep over dinner.

Once everything around them was quiet save for the wind in the trees and the occasional owl hoot, Byleth spent a while staring into the darkness. They couldn’t see much, but most of their torches were out to keep the bugs away. If anyone were to approach, they’d be heard rather than seen.

“I wonder…” Hubert started, his voice low. Byleth turned to look at him. He was a strange young man, to say the least. They got the distinct impression that he hated doing just about everything he did, but did it all anyway out of necessity. They’d never once seen him smile with anything more than a grimace. “What is even the point of running this little errand?”

“It needs to be done,” they said with a shrug. “The canyon is important, and generally off limits. The Knights could do it, but it’s also valuable combat practise.”

“I’m aware of the official reasons,” Hubert said, and even though they weren’t sitting particularly close, Byleth could see the foul look he was shooting them. “I was more wondering why occupying this specific valley is seen as heretical.” There was something decidedly sharp in his tone that Byleth couldn’t quite decipher.

“It’s an important historical site!” Alois chipped in. “Some say it was where the divine Seiros received a revelation from the Goddess, and that its title of the Red Canyon comes from the floods of Adrestian pilgrims who travelled there after Seiros was laid to rest.”

Byleth knew nothing of the stories of the Church, but something about Alois’ words didn’t quite sit right with them. Hubert, too, didn’t look satisfied (they wondered offhandedly if he ever did), but he stayed silent. They listened to the owl calls and the stream flowing past for a while longer, until the time came to wake the next three people on watch: Claude, Ignatz, and Ingrid.

The change in watch happened without a hitch, and near silence fell over the camp again with Byleth hearing only the sound of Alois’ snoring next to them. Yet their mind kept drifting to what Hubert had said. Why was someone’s mere presence in a valley seen as heresy? Was there really much point to sending a group of students to deal with it, when the Knights would be far better suited?

As always, the darkness had no answers for them. Still, their mind could tell them nothing about what was right or wrong in this situation. It was infuriating, not knowing, but still there was absolutely nothing they could do except sleep and learn more when the morning came.

On the next day, the journey for the remaining distance they had to travel was decidedly more subdued than the day before. If the students were tired now, Byleth hoped they’d perk up before engaging in any combat. And that they’d be awake when travelling all the way back to the monastery; they had just as far to return on their way back.

Gradually, the trees around them started to thin out, and the dry earth gave way to rocky terrain. The entrance to Zanado was impossible to miss; there were two guards posted at a gate (which looked decidedly battered, Byleth noticed) who waved them through as Alois approached. The gates were closed behind them.

A slight hush had fallen over the group, and Byleth remembered Rhea’s words about watching their students. As they walked onwards, after noting the strange feeling that had come over them, they paid close attention to everything that was going on. Every motion, every exchange. From the way Ignatz had stiffened next to them, they could tell he was doing the same thing.

Byleth watched as a handful of things happened; Edelgard turned to Lysithea and said something Byleth couldn’t make out from this far back, but they could hear Lysithea’s decidedly shrill tone when she replied. Almost simultaneously, Dimitri stumbled on a handful of loose stones underfoot, and when Annette moved to steady him, he threw her arm off with uncharacteristic lack of care. Annette took a step to the side, treading on Ferdinand’s toes, and she would have stumbled and fallen over had he not caught her.

For a moment, there was something tangible in the air that Byleth couldn’t name and could only just register. It felt like something was about to happen. But then the moment passed, an easy chatter started up amongst the group, and Byleth went back to just feeling slightly strange.

Perhaps they were meant to be looking out for their students acting strangely, but after that incident, Byleth was acutely aware that they didn’t know them all well enough to work out if an action was strange or just something they hadn’t seen before. If something went wrong? Well, they didn’t even know what the Archbishop was expecting to go wrong. Or what was expected of them if something did happen.

When the bandit encampment came into view, Byleth started ordering the students into loose formations. It wouldn’t be long until they were engaged in combat; their group wasn’t exactly subtle, and it was unlikely that the bandits would give them any time to prepare.

Something felt distinctly wrong about leading children into battle, but they put the youngest or most physically vulnerable students in the middle of the group and hoped for the best. There wasn’t exactly anything they could do to keep them out of this battle without putting them at risk.

The initial barrier in the way of their access to the bandit’s main camp, a stone bridge crossing a chasm, ended up being simple to cross. The handful of bandits that had clearly been posted to guard it didn’t put up all that much of a fight, and they were able to cross to a large land mass fairly easily. From there, they dispatched a few more and regrouped to plan their next steps.

“I want to take a couple of people across there,” Byleth said, pointing in the direction of a narrow bridge to their left. A little further away, they could see a mage. As of yet, none of the other bandits were moving, and they hoped it would stay that way. “Bernadetta, Lorenz, if you could come with me please? Alois, I’m trusting the larger bridge to you.”

“Of course, Professor,” he said, shooting them a grin. Meanwhile, Bernadetta edged her way out of the rest of the crowd (Byleth had stuck her at the back so she wasn’t on the front lines but also wasn’t overwhelmed by people around her, something they hoped she appreciated) while Lorenz stayed put at the front.

“Professor,” Lorenz said. “With all due respect, I believe someone else might be better suited for this task. After last month’s incident, I think it is paramount that someone keep an eye on Claude.”

Byleth glanced over at Claude, who rolled his eyes at Lorenz’s words. As Lorenz spoke, even, a handful of people groaned. “I’m sure that’s not necessary,” they said, beckoning him again. “There’s a whole class full of people who are just as capable of making sure that no one gets separated from the group. If anything, I’d look out for yourself and for Bernadetta right now.”

Lorenz looked between them and Claude, and then sighed, stepping out from the rest of the group and towards Byleth. “Of course, Professor,” he said. “I’ll be sure to protect Bernadetta and yourself from anything that may come our way.”

“Thank you,” they said, turning on their heels to face the bridge to their left. “Good luck to the rest of you, I’ll see you at the bandit camp!”

They set off, the first two bandits on the bridge easily overcome within a couple of moments. Honestly, this many people on this mission was largely pointless; they could have handled this whole thing with a group half the size, had they been asked. Once they moved to cross the bridge, however, Bernadetta stopped.

“Oh, Professor,” she said, and Byleth could see her practically shaking like a leaf. “Do you really think it’s the best idea to cross with so few people? I’m not so great on the front lines or anything…”

Byleth nodded. “That’s fine, Bernadetta,” they said. “You have no reason to worry. Lorenz isn’t frail, and I’m experienced at taking down common thieves like these ones. You’re here for ranged coverage to make it easier for the pair of us rather than front line combat.”

Bernadetta nodded, and while her hands were still trembling, she managed to catch up and get several shots in. She was a fantastically accurate archer and definitely sold herself short; with her help, they tore through the remaining bandits and made their way to the centre of the bandit camp just as the rest of the group also arrived.

It was easy to take down their leader. Too easy, almost, but Byleth wasn’t exactly going to demand a do over. Edelgard was the one who struck the final blow, her axe cutting into the man’s waist.

As he stumbled backwards, he spoke - Byleth leaned in, hoping to catch some kind of answer as to why the bandits would have chosen here of all places to flee to. Surely they must have known something like this would happen. “This was meant to be- an easy job…” the man croaked out. “Just a couple of pathetic kids. No one told-”

It was a shot of dark magic from Hubert that cut the man off before he said anything more. Byleth looked to him, but within an instant he had turned away to attend to Edelgard, who had apparently taken an arrow to her left leg while crossing over to the camp. Strange, they supposed, but the action wasn’t unwarranted. Perhaps it had been cruel to leave him alive just a little longer to wait for him to talk.

The journey to return to the monastery began almost immediately, once any wounds had been patched up, and the students were decidedly subdued as they made their way out of the canyon. Byleth supposes they would have been more put off if they’d been cheerful, but it was still out of character for them.

The quiet gave them time to think: the students fought well together, which made sense - they’d been trained together. But the question still remained as to why. Why was it necessary for them to be able to fight as an army, when they’d go their separate ways from the Academy and hopefully never fight as a single unit again? Why did they need to be taught how to fight those the Church viewed as heretics?

“Ferdinand,” they said, their eyes fixed on the young man just in front of them. He jumped, but turned around with a small smile fixed on his face. “Does this kind of thing happen often?” If it did, maybe it would make sense. Maybe the students were needed because there were constant threats against the Church and against spaces that many people in Fódlan viewed as sacred.

“Not at all,” he said. Well, that shot that particular answer out of the water. “We have to do an exercise every month, but we very rarely see combat. If we do, it’s usually something in our home territories rather than a Church issue.”

“I see,” they said. “That’s good to know. I suppose my arrival really shook things up?”

Ferdinand laughed. “Absolutely, Professor,” he said. “In a good way, mostly, of course. A good way other than the bandit attack, that is.” With that, he moved further forward in the crowd again, leaving Byleth to their thoughts.

This didn’t make sense. Everything they learned seemed to take another answer off the table rather than actually putting the pieces together, and it didn’t help that thinking was so...hard in Zanado.

That was the other issue: there was something about this place. Byleth couldn’t tell what it was, but there was definitely something. It was like there was a very slight fog in their brain, and every time they looked at something in this landscape (which was decidedly not red, despite the name) they felt like they were seeing it twice. But when they blinked, the feeling passed, and they could tell they were only seeing it through one set of eyes.

It was strange, and uncomfortable, and they were very glad to leave the canyon at the end of the day. It was just another thing, on top of the myriad of other things, that posed thousands of questions and very few answers. For now, it looked like they wouldn’t be able to solve it.


	8. Chapter 3.1 - News of Unrest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's bad news from the Kingdom, and it causes a few answers to come to light.

Within a couple of days of their return to the monastery from destroying the bandit encampment, Byleth received another summons from the Archbishop. She smiled when she saw them, as she always did; a smile that communicated something Byleth didn’t quite understand. At the very least, they were glad she wasn’t hostile to them, in spite of their background being exactly the kind she objected to.

“Before I begin, Professor,” she said, “I’d like to congratulate you on your successful excursion last week. Your work was very much appreciated in expelling those foul blasphemers from such a precious place, and I heard you handled your students with grace and confidence.”

“Thank you, Archbishop,” they said, ducking their head in a nod. It was how they’d seen some of the knights responding to her, so they imagined it was right. “Do you have an assignment for my students this month as well?”

“I do,” she said, and the look of gentle grace to her eyes and mouth hardened as she spoke. “There has been a rebellion in the western part of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus. Due to problems of bandits in the east, the Kingdom have been unable to sort out the issue themselves. The Knights have been despatched to the Gaspard region to deal with the situation, though information on the source of their discontent has so far been...difficult to come by.”

“I wish them luck,” Byleth said with a nod. Something about this didn’t sit right with them, so... “But I wonder why my students need to be involved in this. I understand the need for practical combat experience as well as any, but a situation such as this where the details are hazy make me worry for their safety.” They were only children, after all.

Slightly surprisingly, Rhea nodded. They didn’t imagine people questioned her decisions all that often. “Of course,” she said. “The students are not heading out to the Gaspard region to fight the rebellion; the Knights were requested for that. Their task is to aid the Knights in the wake of the rebellion. However little information we have, where there is violence there are always people who need help in the aftermath.”

Byleth nodded. That was...honestly, such a task sounded like a good idea to them. Hopefully not too dangerous, and something that would actually feel like doing good. “I understand,” they said. “I’ll inform the students of their task today, and we’ll go when we receive word from the Knights. Thank you for your time, Archbishop.” 

With that, she smiled, and they bowed to her before leaving. From there, they made their way directly to their classroom. As they’d predicted, some of them were already there: Lysithea and Annette tended to arrive way ahead of time for their classes, while most of their other students were fairly punctual. Others, like Claude or Felix, would arrive just as late as was acceptable (Felix from the training grounds, Claude from the library) before they actually started teaching, while Linhardt and Hilda tended to just arrive when they felt like it. Linhardt was the student who most frequently missed lessons.

The teaching they had to do today was very numbers-based. Mathematics was perhaps not their strongest subject, but it was something they found they had at least a little aptitude for, at least beyond the calculations their father had sometimes asked them to do for the purposes of book-keeping. Except, rather than money, these exercises were based on battle formations and combat predictions.

Their general setup for this kind of class was very simple: they’d give a short introduction, hand out the assignments, and leave the students to it. They needed to know how to do this kind of thing on their own, and Byleth doubted they’d learn all that much if they just talked them through every problem on the blackboard. 

That said, not everyone could work through the exercises without a little assistance, so they tended to wander around and check how people were doing, keeping a close eye out for people who weren’t writing at all (sometimes a sign of laziness, but usually just someone being completely stuck).

The first person they spotted not writing, however, was Hilda, and they were willing to bet that had something to do with the fact that she was spending more time looking over Claude’s shoulder for the answers than actually looking at the questions - questions she could probably do if she just put her mind to it.

As Byleth drew a little closer, Claude spoke to Hilda. “There’s no point looking over my shoulder, you know,” he said, shooting Byleth a small smile as he spoke. “I don’t know the answers any better than you do. If you want to copy them, you could at least lend me a hand.”

Hilda raised an eyebrow, also looking at Byleth more than Claude, and they looked over at Claude’s paper. He had all the right answers already. They smiled slightly, opting to leave them both to it, and moved on to Annette a few seats forward. She was half hunched over her paper, her brow decidedly furrowed.

“What’s the problem?” they asked. They’d tried not to approach too quickly or too silently, but she jumped nonetheless.

“Oh, Professor!” she said. “I’m sorry. I...I don’t understand these problems. They seem fine the first time I look at them, but the second time, I’m positive I’ve just got something wrong. These numbers don’t make sense!”

Carefully, they looked over Annette’s work. Of all the things they’d set, she had everything right. It was just that… “You’ve started on the second set of problems,” they said. Annette nodded.

“I always get stuck at some point and then I slow everyone else down, so I thought I’d try to get a head start, but suddenly these ones are so much more difficult and I just know it’s wrong…”

“They are wrong,” they said, and Annette’s face fell. “Because I haven’t told you how to do these yet. These ones add an independent avoidance stat,” they said, pointing at a set of ten problems, “and these ones at the end include terrain differences. Does that help you at all?”

Annette’s eyes lit up, and she immediately went for one of the big textbooks she always kept on her desk. “Yeah, it does!” she said. “Thanks, Professor. Sorry for being a bother.”

“You’re no bother at all, Annette,” they said. “In fact, I was just about to tell you that you’ve done a great job with the rest of these. Well done on your fast work.” On hearing that, Annette flushed, and she buried her head in the huge book. Byleth smiled and resumed their rounds of the classroom - it looked like Linhardt had fallen asleep.

At the end of the lesson, they stood at the head of the class to tell them about what they were to do next. It was a speech that provoked quite the variety of responses; most of the students sat up rod straight at the mention of unrest and the possibility of what they could be dealing with.

Byleth noted that Dimitri in particular looked affected by the news. They supposed that would make sense, considering the Kingdom was the place he would one day come to rule. That said, even if the reaction was perfectly natural and understandable, they felt like they should check on him. While he was always a very serious young man, his expression during that announcement had been in another world of heavy emotions.

Lunch came afterwards, so Byleth made an effort to sit by Dimitri. If he wanted to, he’d be able to talk about it with them. If he didn’t, then he’d at least have their company to help him take his mind off the bad news. They wondered if he’d even heard the news before, the way he’d reacted to it.

“Professor…” he started. Byleth had sat down three minutes before and Dimitri hadn’t eaten anything since then. Just pushed the food around his plate. “About Gaspard.” They nodded. “Did you receive the information from the Archbishop?” They nodded again, and Dimitri sighed. “I imagine my uncle’s letter hasn’t got through yet. They read our letters, you see, for our safety more than anything, especially after-” He stopped.

“After..?” they prompted. Dimitri shook his head.

“It is not my story to tell,” he said firmly. “I just wanted to...explain a little. Our task this month is rather my fault, I’m afraid.”

“I’m sure it’s not,” they said. He hadn’t started the rebellion, hadn’t thrown the first stone. Whatever he was thinking he had the blame for, they doubted it was anything quite so serious as this.

“I’m afraid it is,” he said. “The whole country of Faerghus is in turmoil right now because there is no King. One day, perhaps next year, that will be me, but for now my uncle rules in my stead. Faerghus has been suffering ever since the Tragedy, and I cannot help but feel responsible. Even though I have no idea what the specific problem in Gaspard is, and I’m powerless to stop it. Perhaps because of that.”

Byleth opened their mouth to respond with something they hoped would be comforting, yet before they could get a single word out, Felix came to join them. He set his plate loudly onto the table. “What are you moping about, boar?” he asked. That name again; it was something Byleth had heard Felix say once or twice, but they had no clue as to how it had developed. Dimitri always responded to it, but no one else used it.

“Oh, Felix, good afternoon!” Dimitri said, offering up a smile. Felix frowned. “I was just talking to the Professor about-”

“Gaspard, I know,” Felix said. “And how your useless uncle isn’t doing his damn job. I’ve never heard a thing about anything going wrong in Gaspard, and yet here they are throwing their lives away against the Knights. And here you are. Eating lunch without a care in the world, doing nothing about the people who probably think they’re dying in your name. I shouldn’t have expected anything more.”

With that, Felix gestured towards Dimitri with the blunt end of his knife. Dimitri bit his lip before speaking. “I will do something when I can,” he explained. His voice was steady, practised, like he’d said the words a hundred times before. “I’m unable to just yet.”

Felix scoffed. “You’re probably looking forward to going there,” he said. “Putting down the remnants of the rebellion, crushing those little farmers who dared to disobey your mighty will underneath your feet.” He was looking directly at Dimitri. “Running them through with your lance before they even get the chance to grovel for their lives.”

Dimitri flinched away from him, and Felix twitched. For a fraction of a second, Byleth got a strange feeling. Something they’d felt before, but they couldn’t quite place. The tension mounted, the pair of them just staring at each other, until a low sound of frustration left Felix’s mouth, something close to a growl, and he threw his knife down on the plate with a clatter and stood.

“Careful with him, Professor,” Felix said, his voice tight. “Under that princely act, he’s a beast. Nothing more. If you’re not cautious, he’ll chew you up and spit you back out again.” With that, he turned on his heel and left, leaving his lunch almost completely uneaten.

Dimitri looked at the empty space despairingly. “I’m sorry for that, Professor,” he said. He sounded even less cheerful than he had before. “Felix and I don’t always see eye to eye on a lot of things.” Byleth could see that, and yet that felt like...more than just a simple disagreement. Felix’s words had been edged with something important. Something they were yet to understand.

“It’s okay,” they said, offering him an encouraging smile. He didn’t return it, but a little of the tension in his shoulders dissipated. “I hope you can mend your relationship with him soon.”

“I hope so too,” he said with a sigh. “We were best of friends for a long time, Professor. But I feel repairing our relationship isn’t quite on the cards. At least not just yet.” With that, he went back to his lunch in silence.

It wasn’t until they were both done and Byleth had moved on from the hall when they remembered where they’d felt that strange feeling that had come over them in the height of Felix and Dimitri’s argument before. It was the same as the sensation they’d felt in the Red Canyon.

Their plans for the afternoon were simple and mostly involved marking assignments completed with very varying levels of proficiency. They liked to do their marking out in the gardens of the monastery because it was nice and they didn’t like being shut up indoors, but it did mean that students tended to approach them with a variety of problems.

The first one for that day was Edelgard. “Professor,” she said when she approached, “could I talk to you about something for a moment?” Byleth gestured to the chair they’d moved over to this part of the gardens for this exact purpose, and Edelgard sat down. “I was...thinking about our assignment. The one from last month, that is.”

They nodded, prompting her to continue. “I was wondering if you...well, if you noticed anything strange about the bandits, I suppose. I thought there was something off about the whole issue and I just wanted to know if you felt the same way.”

They nodded again. “I did,” they said. “There was something strange about it, I’m certain of that much. The bandits’ leader said something about how they’d been given a job. That’s the fare of mercenaries, not common thieves.”

“Exactly!” Edelgard said. “That was exactly what I was thinking, but I brought it up to Alois and all he did was reassure me that I had nothing to worry about. Which is a nice sentiment, but it wasn’t actually what I was thinking about. The problem is that I don’t have a clue beyond that. Even Hubert has no idea, though he’s looking into it by asking around town.”

“What is he asking about?” they asked. They doubted they could help him, because Hubert had managed to get ruthless efficiency down to a fine art, but if they could even get some kind of idea as to the questions they should be asking…

“Shifty employers in town,” Edelgard said. “People who might hold a grudge against any member of our party. His problem, he says, is narrowing it down; almost everyone sent to deal with them was important to some degree.”

They nodded, and though they discussed the issue a little further with Edelgard, neither of them could quite come up with a workable way forward. Edelgard left clearly disappointed, and Byleth felt they’d somehow failed her. It was a shame, but there wasn’t all that much they could do about it. They had no idea what the job the bandit had been given was, and there was no way for them to find out now the whole group was dead.

Once Edelgard was gone, it was Ferdinand who approached them next. “Hail, Professor,” he said, waving to them. They inclined their head in return, marking a large cross next to Christie’s long and entertaining (but sadly flawed - while the idea that lances had an inherent strength against swords because of their reach was intriguing, they knew that skill in such a weapon was required first) paragraph on unit weapon distribution.

“Good afternoon, Ferdinand,” they said, and without them even offering an invitation, he sat down on the chair next to them. “What can I do for you?”

“I heard the conversation you were engaged in at lunch,” Ferdinand said. Byleth was willing to assume that the only person who didn’t hear their conversation at lunch was Bernadetta, who hadn’t even been there. Felix wasn’t exactly softly spoken. “I wanted to provide an additional perspective, so to speak.”

“Anything you can tell me about the issue is welcome,” they said, and Ferdinand beamed. “I’ll admit I’m not familiar with the minutiae of these problems.” Or the clearly difficult history between Felix and Dimitri, for that matter, but they weren’t going to directly ask Ferdinand about that. It wouldn’t be fair.

“Personally,” Ferdinand said, “I cannot blame Dimitri for the frequent issues in Faerghus; they simply aren’t his fault. He is necessarily kept from his throne to attend training here at the monastery. I suppose he’s been here longer than most, but still…”

“Why is that?” they asked. If they were being perfectly honest, they didn’t understand how students came to be at the monastery, or why some were clearly around longer than others.

Ferdinand, for just a moment, looked a little surprised, but he recovered quickly. “Ah, sometimes it’s so easy to forget that you weren’t here as a student, Professor. You fit in so well with everyone. To answer your question, Dimitri has been here longer than many others because it’s usual for a Crest to manifest at eight and for a student to leave here after a decade of training. Dimitri’s Crest, by comparison appeared when he was five, so he’s been here nearly thirteen years.”

Byleth nodded. That was the kind of information they imagined should have been provided for them far earlier. They supposed it wasn’t strictly relevant, but it was definitely some background that would have helped them work out the kind of dynamics at play here. Better late than never, they supposed.

“The issue of the Church being unable to free Dimitri to take up his inheritance earlier is a real shame,” Ferdinand continued. “Ideally, he would have left several years ago, because his uncle is doing a frankly frightful job as regent.” His face, then, furrowed into a frown. “If only Duke Blaiddyd had a Crest.”

“Would that make a difference?” they asked. Maybe it would. It turned out there were an awful lot of things that Byleth didn’t understand.

“Oh, of course,” Ferdinand said simply. “Crests are power, Professor. And power is the condition of respect, especially in the Kingdom. On top of that, bearing a Crest is practically a necessary quality for good leadership. It’s impossible for the Duke to rule effectively without one, hence all the unrest in Faerghus.”

“I don’t think I’d agree that having a Crest is a condition for leadership,” Byleth said. They could see where Ferdinand’s idea came from, of course, but the truth of the matter felt a little further removed from that. “My father led his mercenary company without a mention of a Crest from anyone.”

Ferdinand paused for a moment, a strange look on his face, but eventually he nodded. “I understand where you’re drawing that from,” he said, “but I’d object on the point of leadership still. While a few men can be lead by strength, a whole court, a whole nation? It’s rather a different matter. The Goddess granted Crests to the best of men for the purpose of ruling Fódlan, and I think that’s a message everyone respects.”

After that, Ferdinand hurried off to his next class, and Byleth was left with a lot to think about. If only a little, and only on one side, things were starting to come together. The issue of Crests was one of power, one of legitimacy. One of the ability to rule over others. Military training made a little more sense. The whole mess made a little more sense.

That said, questions still remained. Why the monastery? Why keep people here from the moment they gained a Crest until the moment they became an adult? Why let a country fall half to ruin in those intervening years? Byleth had a lot of ideas as to what the answers to such questions could be, and they didn’t like it one bit.


	9. Chapter 3.2 - Mutiny in the Mist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A monthly task that wasn't meant to involve any fighting goes horribly wrong.

Tension only built in the monastery as the month drew on. Dimitri missed a handful of classes (very much unlike him, Ingrid assured them, and she said he’d be back to his normal self once this was over), Felix destroyed a training dummy, Byleth found Christie sniffling in the greenhouse…

Byleth wanted the whole thing to be over. They hadn’t realised how much they’d been able to settle in and enjoy teaching their students until things started to fray at the edges. It was unpleasant, watching them all stress in their own ways. They wished it wasn’t happening.

In the final week of the month, they received news from the Knights. The rebellion had been quelled, the ringleader had run off with his tail between his legs, and the route to Gaspard was clear. All that was needed now was for everyone who could to pitch in and repair the damage that had inevitably been done.

It was like the sun had broken through the clouds. Claude was smiling again, Bernadetta stopped tripping over her words so much. Byleth could finally let out the breath they always found themselves holding around Dimitri for a reason they couldn’t quite understand. Felix stopped breaking so many things by accident.

All that was left to do was to go out there and fix everything that had been torn apart. That was easy enough, wasn’t it? It was the least taxing part of this whole episode, they were sure. At least, they hoped it would be. The students really didn't deserve to go through more worry than they already had.

The day they were due to set out dawned bright and early, as most days at Garreg Mach did. Byleth spent their morning wandering the monastery, saying good morning to various cats, and pulling Felix and Ferdinand out of the training grounds to get them to breakfast on time. At the agreed time, they went to knock on Bernadetta’s door to get her out of her room before they headed over to the monastery’s gates. As always, they were locked shut, but they’d be open soon enough.

Catherine and Raphael, the Knights who would be accompanying them on this particular mission, were already at the gates when they arrived, along with a handful of students. Catherine greeted them with a short wave, and Raphael with a grin.

“Good morning, Professor!” he called. His voice was booming, as usual, but it was something they'd mostly managed to get used to by now. “All ready to go?”

“Of course,” they returned. “How are you this morning Raphael, Catherine?”

Raphael smiled widely, because none of his actions were taken in half measures. “Raring to go,” he said. “It’s an awful thing that’s happened, but I’m keen to get out there and help. Ignatz was out there with the main force, too, so I’m looking forward to seeing him again.”

“This isn’t a game, Raphael,” Catherine said, but she didn’t look too bothered really. “I hope you really are ready. And remember, your job is to keep an eye on the students. Not some village children who ‘looked like they needed a friend’.” That sounded like it had a story, but Byleth wasn't particularly inclined to ask about it. They could guess.

Raphael chuckled and rubbed the back of his head. “Yeah, I get it,” he said. “Keep my mind on the task at hand and all that. Honestly, Catherine, you’re starting to sound like Shamir!”

Catherine snorted. “I wouldn’t hear the end of it from her if I was,” she said. “But thank you for the warning.” Raphael laughed in return, and then turned to look past Byleth, up towards the monastery. He waved.

“Morning, Seteth!” he called. Around them, Byleth noticed the way the students quieted a little. Seteth tended to have that effect, though they were yet to work out exactly what the cause was.

“Good morning, Raphael,” Seteth said. “And Catherine, Professor. I trust you’re all ready to go?”

“Absolutely,” Catherine said. “We’ve had the full report from the Knights and while they’ll likely be making their final engagement today, or perhaps they made it yesterday, we’re in the clear. We’re all good to go.”

“I would still caution you to be careful,” Seteth said. “The Knights out there have sent word that everything is under control, but there’s no merit to letting your guard down in a volatile area.”

“You worry too much, Seteth!” Raphael said, offering Seteth a smile. Seteth’s returning expression was decidedly more strained. “No one’s getting hurt on my watch. Everyone is totally safe.”

“I appreciate your diligence, Raphael,” Seteth said, “but there’s no benefit to overconfidence. Keep your head on your shoulders and I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

“Of course we will, Seteth,” Catherine replied, clapping Raphael on the back. “Between the two of us, I think we have this pretty much covered. And the Professor here’s not exactly a weakling, are they?”

For the first time in the conversation, Seteth looked over at them for more than a moment. After a brief instant of eye contact, he nodded. “They’re not,” he said, his voice carefully neutral. “Lead them well, Professor.”

They nodded. “I will,” they replied. They knew Seteth didn’t place all that much faith in them, but it didn’t make any difference to something like this. Their job was to protect and guide the students, not to please the Archbishop’s stern advisor. If the latter could come with time, they'd be glad for it, but for now they were fine as they were. “We should be heading off,” they added. “We have a lot of ground to cover before the sun sets.”

“Of course,” Seteth said. “I wish you all luck, and safe travels. May the Goddess be with you.”

“And also with you,” Catherine said, her expression turning a little more solemn until Seteth disappeared back into the monastery. Once he was out of sight, she turned back to the group of students, who now looked about ready to depart. Somehow, they’d all managed to arrive on time. “Right, it’s time to go!” she called. “Who’s on navigation today?”

The route out to the western parts of the Kingdom was fairly easy, but it would take more than a full day to reach their destination. As they walked, Byleth fell into step with Dedue, whose eyes were pinned firmly on the back of Dimitri’s head. Dimitri, they were glad to see, seemed to have picked up his mood a little bit in the last couple of days. Considering how much he'd struggled this month, it was a welcome change.

“You’re still worried about him,” they observed. They didn’t know exactly what it was that Dimitri was having so many difficulties with, but they understood why Dedue felt so strongly about it. Whatever it was, it was clearly something Dimitri struggled with on and off occasionally, and Byleth got the feeling it had something to do with his difficult past.

“I am,” Dedue said. “The Kingdom has been having a rocky time for as long as I have lived in Fódlan, and his Highness bears the brunt of the guilt on himself.”

“Yet it’s not his fault,” they added. Dedue looked up at them.

“It is not,” he said, his voice slightly cautious. “There is nothing he can do about it. Unrest is common; we often take missions on at the end of months to aid with stopping bandits, or taking supplies to far flung towns at risk of famine. He is doing all he can in his current position.”

“That’s a good thing,” they said. They were glad to hear that the Church helped the outside world. They’d spent so long seeing that outside world without seeing a sign of Knights or churches and it had felt a little like they’d stumbled into a little bubble when they came to the monastery. Perhaps that assumption wasn’t as accurate as they’d thought before.

“It is,” Dedue said. “And yet, I wish there was more I could do.” He sighed, his gaze returning to the back of Dimitri’s head. Dimitri was talking to Marianne, her head ducked low and his voice even lower. Byleth wondered for a moment what he was saying, but knew they shouldn’t pry.

“It’s not your job to do that kind of thing,” they said. Dedue was here with a purpose, a task, and he was fulfilling it just fine. He was more than fine at it, honestly. “You’re protecting Dimitri as best you can. In that way, instead of just safeguarding and helping the present, you’re contributing to the future.”

Dedue nodded again. He wasn’t the most expressive person Byleth knew (the cake would have to go to Raphael for that one, they felt, or perhaps Ferdinand), but they’d started to get a handle on the ways he expressed himself. Right now, Dedue seemed pretty pleased. “I worry, occasionally,” he admitted.

“About what?” they asked. They normally wouldn’t ask that kind of question of a student who stopped themselves short of details, but when Dedue was saying something, he normally liked to break it up a little. If he was talking about it now, he probably wanted to say some more.

“I wonder if my presence at his Highness’ side does more harm than good,” he said.

They knew why he would say that, of course. He was right to wonder, at the very least, because they’d seen the way that people in the marketplace occasionally looked at Dedue. They looked at him like something was wrong with his presence in the monastery. Like he wasn’t meant to be there. Like he wasn’t meant to be in Fódlan. “Pay the people who imply that no mind," they said. "It's a shallow position for them to take."

“I agree,” he said. “It is a position they take because they have not taken the time to get to know Duscur or its people.” He stopped, and Byleth watched his gaze drift towards Ingrid. “I understand why they take that position, sometimes. But I also understand that people can grow.”

“I’m glad they can,” they said, and from there the conversation lapsed into silence, Dedue’s steady gaze fixed on Dimitri once more. It was rather sweet, they supposed, the concern that Dedue carried with him for Dimitri. It went beyond a job; Dedue was a companion to Dimitri, a friend.

As the evening drew closer and the light started to fade, a fog started to roll in from the river. That was a bad sign for the night watch, and they’d have to keep some torches on. The students would be damp and miserable in the morning too, Byleth would guess.

When they got the fire going and they’d managed to cook enough food to feed everyone (and Raphael, who ate the equivalent of about five meals), Byleth’s eyes drifted over to Dedue once more. He was sat with Dimitri at his left, and Sylvain and Ingrid at his right. The three boys were smiling, wider than Byleth had ever seen Dedue or Dimitri smile before, as Ingrid told them something. Her hands were waving around wildly, and the whole circle of students collapsed into laughter at Ingrid’s face when she accidentally dropped the food she’d had in her hand in the fire.

When they were marching off to a town that had been in revolt only a few days ago with weapons strapped to their backs (just in case, of course), it was difficult to forget that their students were, well...kids. Byleth definitely couldn’t forget that now, but it brought the smallest smile to their face. It was good to see them having a little fun.

Accompanying them on second watch that night were Catherine and Lysithea. Byleth hadn’t expected Lysithea to volunteer for the watch; while she hated to admit it, she tired quite easily and didn’t always find it easy to stay up long after any kind of physical activity. But they hadn’t question her decision to take the watch, and, watching her and Catherine, they now realised why she’d made that decision.

“How are you doing, then?” Catherine asked, and there was a warmth to her voice that Byleth really hadn’t heard before.

“I’m fine, thank you very much,” Lysithea said. There was a small petulant note to her voice that always popped up when someone asked her how she was doing — she tended to take it as an attack rather than as the simple small talk it was — but the note of annoyance was less than it would be if, say, Claude asked her.

Catherine laughed, keeping her voice low so as not to wake the whole camp. “I know, I know,” she said. “You’re perfectly capable of handling yourself. You’ve told me all of that before, and I’m perfectly aware. I’m not doubting your ability, Lysi. I’m just reminding you to take care of yourself, okay?”

To their surprise, Lysithea nodded. There were all kinds of things they would have expected from that moment: Lysithea would object to the nickname, or the sentiment, or the assumption that she would think others would doubt her physical abilities at all. But she didn’t do any of those things. “I know,” she replied. “Thanks.”

It was a strange interaction to see, they supposed. Catherine in particular, out of all the knights, could be quite short with the students; she expected a lot from them, and she was determined to see them fulfil their potential. A sentiment they could sympathise with, even if they didn’t quite want to use it in the same way.

They would have expected that kind of warmth with someone like, say, Edelgard, who worked very hard and did her best, even when her lack of giving herself a break caught up with her on occasion. But Catherine tended to be particularly snappy with some of the more...well, difficult students, they supposed. They’d once seen her snap at Marianne, of all people (it was for putting herself down unfairly, but still. Marianne was probably at the bottom of the list of students Byleth would shout at, and all of their students came below their mental line of ‘I would never shout at this person’).

They would have imagined that Lysithea would come under the category of 'difficult students'. She worked very hard, but while Edelgard's inability to take breaks was a minor hindrance, Lysithea's bordered on dangerous at times. And her attitude was challenging in general, because of how touchy she could be. Byleth had imagined that they'd struggle to get on, between all of that and Catherine's bluntness. Yet that wasn't the case at all.

They supposed they could spend as long as they liked making mental notes about all the quirks of the people around them, but the fact of the matter was that they just didn’t know everyone that well yet. There were always going to be interactions that surprised them when they’d barely known these people for two months.

They settled down to sleep for the night still thinking about the tender note to Catherine’s voice and expression. They were surprised, sure, but they were glad that Lysithea had an adult she could trust with telling her to take care of herself without worrying that it was an insult.

The next day, the fog still hadn’t cleared, and a chill had settled over all the students. They were oddly quiet as they moved forwards towards their destination, and the only thing Byleth could hear most of the time was their footsteps on the undergrowth, the spitting from the torch Raphael was holding at the front of their party, and the occasional sound of Christie querying their directions for a few moments before she decided that they should probably just keep going regardless.

As the day got towards midday, and they were getting ever closer to Gaspard, the fog still hadn’t lifted. They were probably no more than a couple of hours away by now, and the sun definitely should have been up enough to clear the fog, but Byleth couldn’t even see far enough above them to see the sky. There was something odd about all this.

Catherine was clearly starting to feel it too, and as she tensed, so did the students. Once or twice, Byleth watched Claude’s hand drift to his weapon at any passing sound. They were getting cautious too, but they were careful not to show it too much. They didn’t want the students getting more worried than they already were.

When the first person burst out of the trees, lance in hand, they were all ready. All it took was a simple swipe from Dedue’s axe and he was lying on the floor, bleeding out in front of them. It was only then that their party realised it was just a man dressed in barely more than rags. His lance was basic, barely even sharp. He wouldn’t have put a scratch on Dedue, not really, and yet…

“I won’t- I won’t let you hurt Lord Lonato!” the man cried, his strength failing him. He couldn’t even stand.

Catherine’s posture immediately hardened. “Right, everyone,” she said, and she drew her weapon. Everyone watched, eyes wide, at its orange glow. “We should assume that there are more of them. We should also assume that they’re coming for us, and that the fog has somehow been created by them. None of this is natural.”

Everyone shifted into battle formations, forming loose circles around the more vulnerable members of their party. Marianne, Christie, and Linhardt formed the centre, with Claude and Bernadetta a little further out, and Hubert bringing up the rear. It surprised Byleth with how quickly they’d all reacted. Was this something they’d practised with a previous teacher, something they had been prepared to do from the start?

“Professor, take the lead with the students,” Catherine said. “Edelgard, Raphael, with me. We’re going to find whatever’s causing this fog. The rest of you should cover our backs and take out anyone who comes after us. Understood?”

“Understood,” Byleth said, and the students all made various sounds of affirmation, ranging from confidence to a barely concealed scream.

The battlefield was difficult. Every so often, someone would emerge from the trees, the fog obscuring them until they got close. Catherine had left with the torch, so Byleth could see that way, but the rest of the land ahead of them was a lost cause. Each time someone emerged, it was a simple villager. None of them were heavily armoured or heavily armed, but they cried out in defence of their lord. Each time, the pained look on Dimitri’s face only grew.

“This shouldn’t be happening…” he said, his forehead creased with a frown. In between assaults, Claude took a moment to give him a pat on the back.

“I know, Dimitri,” he said. He sounded torn up too. “It’s awful. But they’re not going to stop just because we don’t want to hurt them. We didn’t even attack them, they ambushed us.”

“But on whose orders?” Dimitri asked, his expression now decidedly angry. “Who dares lead these innocents into battle on their behalf?” As if on cue, as soon as the words left his mouth the fog started to clear, and Byleth caught a glimpse of a mage collapsing onto the ground. Above him, Edelgard stood triumphant.

From the rapidly dissipating mists, Byleth saw a figure emerge. He was on horseback, and his face was stern and set with heavy lines. He was clearly an experienced soldier, and he held his lance loosely and with confidence. His grey hair swept down his neck, and Byleth couldn’t shake the feeling that he was staring right at them.

“Ah, it is you,” the man said, his voice heavy. His eyes had now clearly fallen on Catherine. “Somehow, Cassandra, I am unsurprised.”

“There is no Cassandra here, Lonato,” Catherine replied, stepping forwards to meet him. Carefully, she twirled her sword in her right hand. Her posture was assured, and she was far more youthful than him. Byleth knew where the advantage lay. “I am Catherine, and I serve Archbishop Rhea as her left hand.”

The man, Lonato, merely scoffed. “I would expect nothing less from a filthy heretic from the Central Church,” he said. “First you kill my son, and now you come to steal away everything else I had.”

“It wasn’t me who did that,” Catherine said. “This is all on you, Lonato. Leading your townspeople against the students of the monastery? How low can you stoop, sending innocents to kill innocents?”

Byleth, decidedly lost over the connection between the pair, glanced over at their students. Everyone had stopped stock still, watching as Lonato and Catherine sized each other up. They were tempted to ask someone to explain, but they also knew that keeping an eye out for Lonato or any remaining rebels was far more important. None of them knew what this man would do or what he was capable of.

Thankfully, Sylvain saw their look of confusion and opened his mouth. “Catherine left the Academy a while ago,” he explained.

“Nine years ago,” Felix added, his eyes still fixed on Catherine and Lonato.

“Yeah, that,” Sylvain said. “But, uh...just over four years ago, she came back with someone who also left back then, and said he was a traitor to the Kingdom. That was Christophe Gaspard, Lonato’s son. After that, Catherine stayed, because of, well, this kind of thing. Some people in the Kingdom don’t like her very much.”

Linhardt, whose focus was trained on watching Catherine’s weapon, let out a short laugh. “You can say that again,” he said.

“How much of it?” Sylvain asked, and was rewarded by Ingrid hitting him in the back of the head. “Ow! Cut it out.”

“You cut it out,” Ingrid replied, and Sylvain stuck his tongue out at her but remained silent. Catherine had made her move.

Byleth could barely see the movements. They could track the light of Catherine’s sword (something in them felt strange every time they saw the sword move, saw the light pulse, but it was a feeling they couldn’t quite pin down) and the sounds as they whipped around each other, but they couldn’t see who was managing to land blows or if Catherine needed any help. Byleth honestly doubted that it would be safe for anyone to provide any, with how quickly Catherine was dancing around.

For a few moments, Byleth held their breath. And then Lonato let out a long, low groan, and fell to his knees. As he tried to push himself up, Catherine stood over him. “That’s what you get for defying the will of Lady Rhea,” she said.

Lonato spat on the ground at her feet. Byleth was at quite a distance, but they could see blood on Catherine’s boots. Then, instead of looking back up at her, he looked past her and to the crowd of students. “They’re- they’re using you,” he said, and then his eyes met Byleth’s. They maintained his gaze. “But I know asking you to change is no use. So if a dying man can ask for anything...please. Look after the children.”

He opened his mouth again, but words failed him. It was never a good sight, watching someone die, but Byleth couldn’t quite bring themselves to look away as his eyes slid closed. They wondered what else it was he’d had to say; not that they’d ever know, now.

A sombre mood settled over the students as Catherine ordered them on towards their destination. They still had a decent distance to go, and the time they’d lost meant they might not even arrive before nightfall. Everyone was miserable and sore now the adrenaline from the fight had died away.

Everyone, it seemed, except Claude. “Hey Teach,” he said, nudging Byleth just below the ribs. They leaned away, and Claude shot them a sheepish smile before withdrawing a short distance away. “Did you see Catherine’s weapon? That’s a relic. They have awe-inspiring power. It’s kind of mindblowing to see one in battle.”

“What is it?” they asked. They’d never seen anything like it before. It clearly wasn’t metal, but they couldn’t think of what else could cut through tissue quite like that.

Claude looked at them for a moment, a strange look on his face. “Actually, I don’t know,” he said. “They’re sort of a big deal, but we’re not allowed to examine them like specimens or anything. I haven’t even seen mine yet, which sucks. I’ve seen drawings of it of course, but you know...nothing really compares to seeing that kind of power in action. I’ve heard there was even-”

“Now is really not the time, Claude,” Dimitri said, cutting him off. Claude pulled a face, but closed his mouth. Probably wise, considering the dour look on Dimitri’s face. “A relic is meant for the protection of Fódlan. Not...that.” He glanced around at the trees around them, now clear of both fog and villagers. His face was twisted into a frown.

“I just can’t help but wonder why…” Edelgard said. She, too, sounded heartbroken. “Why fight like this? They never stood a chance.”

Byleth heard the metal of Dimitri’s gauntlets buckle under the pressure of his clenched fists.

They wished this could have been solved without a fight. Their students were only children. They weren’t meant to be part of something like this; they were meant to spend their days avoiding their responsibilities, avoiding studying. Instead, they had to avoid being killed on a battlefield they weren’t even meant to be on. Instead, they had to worry about the people they were meant to be leading throwing themselves against their weapons in a futile attempt to change something Byleth didn’t understand.

There was so much being hidden in Fódlan. So much left unsaid by men like Lonato. Byleth had the sinking feeling that their monthly tasks were slowly wiping out the missing pieces of this puzzle, and there was nothing they could do about it. Who was to say, after all, that they wouldn’t end up exactly like Lonato if they tried?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just a lil reminder that comments mean the world to me! This fic is a big commitment time-wise and it makes a world of difference knowing whether or not people enjoy it. Specifically please tell me if you want to see more of a spotlight on a particular character and I'll work them in :)


	10. Chapter 4.1 - Rumoured Danger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The wake of Lord Lonato's rebellion brings many more things to light.

When they finally managed to reach the town of Gaspard, the students’ energy was decidedly faltering, and morale dipped low. Nonetheless, once they arrived, they split off into groups of three or four and set about tasks that the Knights already present in the town set them to.

Most of the tasks were simple; there had been rioting, so students were helping repair breached town defences and shelters. Where businesses had been disrupted, students offered to run errands to patch staffing gaps. Where children had been left alone, the students entertained them while the parents tried to piece their lives back together.

On the whole, however...the students were received decidedly poorly. No one wanted to listen to the advice of someone who’d just killed a friend, a neighbour, a husband, a child. Byleth couldn’t exactly blame the people of Gaspard, but it hurt to see. There was also the problem of how it really, really didn’t do any of the people living here any favours.

“Get out of here!” someone called. Byleth watched as Catherine whipped round to try and locate the person in question; they were higher than street level, for sure, but the sound had disappeared as soon as the call had ended. “You’re not welcome anywhere near our town or our children, Central Church dogs!”

Catherine turned to Ignatz, who shrank slightly under the ire not even directed at him. “Go and find whoever that was,” she said. “If nothing else, I won’t accept them slandering Lady Rhea’s authority like that.”

Ignatz opened his mouth before Byleth stepped in. “Catherine,” they said. Catherine’s glare turned to them. “There’s no need for more fighting or more death. These people are afraid of us; if they wanted this to come to blows again, they’d be down here themselves.”

Catherine looked between Ignatz, who was nodding, and the building the voice had probably come from. She sighed and nodded. “I agree, Professor. Though if they knew what was good for them, they’d keep their thoughts to themselves.”

They supposed that was as good as things could reasonably get, so they left the issue for now. Ideally, the Church would be reconciling themselves with the people here, making sure that something like this didn’t happen again. Whether that could even happen, and whether the Knights here were the right people to attempt something like that was a different matter entirely.

As the day wore on, a party of knights went up to the keep of Gaspard, where the Lord who had started the rebellion had lived. Byleth stayed at the bottom of the hill in the main section of the town, keeping an eye on their students.

Now that most of the Knights were gone, the people of the town relaxed a lot more. They started to at least accept the help of some of the students, even if they weren’t exactly smiling. Out of everyone, Byleth would admit they were surprised to see the eagerness with which Hilda took to the task of helping shift a large number of heavy supplies into a sturdier storeroom. She always tended to complain when she had to do anything, but here she helped without a word.

It was strange and not unwelcome, and Hilda definitely caught them looking. They smiled at her and looked away; it could be their little secret.

The lightening tone of the afternoon turned somewhat, however, when Shamir returned from the top of the hill. “Professor,” she called. “Come to the house where we’ve set up the base. There’s something we need to discuss.”

They spared a short glance back towards a group of students; Christie and Marianne sat cross legged in a group of the town’s children while Claude and Sylvain gestured wildly in tandem, clearly telling a story Byleth couldn’t hear. The students would be okay, and they’d know where Byleth and the Knights were if something did happen to go wrong. “On my way,” they replied.

“The long and short of it is this,” Shamir said, when the last knight had filed in and the doors and windows were all closed. Whatever this was, it was serious. “While searching the castle keep, I discovered these papers.” She laid out a small piece of parchment on the table. “It’s a letter detailing the next moves of some unknown conspirators: a plot to assassinate the Archbishop during the Rite of Rebirth.”

Byleth, very honestly, had no idea what the Rite of Rebirth was, but from the reaction of the people around them they could safely assume that it was important. “Are you sure?” Catherine asked, leaning over to look at the paper herself.

“Of course I’m sure,” Shamir replied. “I wouldn’t joke about something like this. The fact also remains that we need to do something about it. I would suggest taking a hostage from the town. With one of their own at risk, we assure their good behaviour.”

Ignatz, standing across the table, shook his head. His whole body shook as he opened his mouth to speak. “I don’t think that’ll do anything,” he said. “The townspeople hate us, and this really won’t help matters.”

Catherine scoffed. “It doesn’t matter,” she replied, and Ignatz wilted slightly when no one voice an objection to her words. “We already have proof that there was something more than a little rebellion afoot here. There’s no harm in using that information to take someone we have no reason to hurt as...insurance, I suppose.”

Byleth didn’t quite know what to think. They didn’t, at the face of it, think that antagonising anyone further would be a particularly good idea. That said, they also couldn’t deny the truth of the ink on parchment in front of them. Someone in this town, or at least someone linked to it, wanted to attack the monastery. If whoever that was wanted to maintain any kind of sympathy in this town, they wouldn’t attack one of their own.

“Perhaps…” They weren’t sure if they were going to regret this or not, but the word had already left their mouth. Everyone in the room was looking at them; they had to finish what they’d started. “Before Lonato died, he told us to look after the children. Is there anyone specific, do you think? Then we can also tell the townspeople that we’re fulfilling his last wishes.”

The room stilled, and Byleth felt like perhaps they’d said the wrong thing. It had seemed logical and tactical in their head, but maybe… They wondered how old the children Lonato was referring to were. Wondered how well they understood what had happened to the man who wished them nothing but happiness.

“That’s a good idea, Professor,” Catherine said. Her smile was decidedly hard. “Lonato only had one child, and he, ah, died in the wake of the Tragedy. But I suppose it’s worth checking the castle once more.” Died in the wake of the Tragedy. If what Sylvain told them was true, something very different to that had actually happened.

Byleth was, apparently, a good candidate to go searching for whoever they were looking for. Accompanying them was Shamir, apparently to make sure nothing went wrong, Ignatz, and Linhardt. Linhardt had volunteered, for some reason. They didn’t volunteer for many things, so Byleth sort of accepted the offer without question.

The keep was very, very quiet. Byleth was very much used to visiting castles of provincial lords as a mercenary. They were used to seeing the general bustle of a castle full of people with things to do. But this was different. The only people here were conquerors, and there was no one left to fight. Anyone who’d previously been stationed here had been part of the rebellion.

As they split up to search through the rooms of the keep, Byleth ran into someone they recognised; a young adult they’d seen in the marketplace when they were supervising the students there. “Hold a moment!” they called. The youth halted and spun on the spot, nearly dropping a handful of books. “Who are you?”

“O-oh, I-” a pause. “My name is Ashe. Ashe Ubert.” The tips of his fingers worried the edges of the books. “Should I not be here? I’m very sorry, the guards at the gates let me in and-”

“There’s no need to worry,” Ignatz replied, interrupting his apology. His voice was even, probably meant to soothe the boy a little. “Were you here when the keep was searched earlier?”

Ashe shook his head. “I was down in the marketplace,” he said. “I have- two siblings, younger than me. So I was getting them out of the way of all the searches coming up here. I’m sorry if I wasn’t meant to do that.”

Shamir shook her head. “That’s fine,” she said. “You live here with your siblings?” Ashe nodded. “And how old are they?”

“Ten and eleven,” he said. There was trepidation in his voice, clear for anyone to hear, but Byleth didn’t say anything. Shamir knew how to handle getting information from people.

“Hmm.” Shamir said. Ashe was visibly very nervous. “What’s your relation to the late Lord Lonato?”

Ashe flinched, which gave everyone the answer in a single action. His posture became more guarded, and his grip on the books tightened. He may have given his name as Ubert, and Catherine said Lonato had no other children, but… “Why?” he asked.

“Does it matter?” Linhardt asked. “If we wanted to kill you, we would have done so already. You’re in the castle, carrying around items from the library as if they belong to you. Unless you’re a thief, it seems like they do. There’s no harm in telling the truth.”

Byleth shot Linhardt a look, which they clearly ignored, and Ashe chuckled nervously. “I’m his eldest adopted son,” he said. Byleth was surprised that the covers of the books he carried hadn’t torn with how tight his grip was.

“Perfect,” Shamir said. “If you could come with us, please. Ignatz can escort you to pack a small bag, if you wish.”

Ashe’s eyes widened, but he didn’t object. Instead, Byleth heard him ask Ignatz what would happen to his siblings, if the town would be okay. They wondered how old he was; he looked young, but he was technically the son and heir of Lonato’s territory. What would the regent think of the intervention in local governance? Should they be doing this at all?

Byleth regretted mentioning Lonato’s words on the whole, long journey back to the monastery. They felt bad for Ashe, mostly; he was kept to the front of the group, separated from the students by a line of knights. He’d cried saying goodbye to his siblings, who had clutched at the hands of a stony faced woman who’d volunteered to care for them. Ashe hadn’t done anything to deserve things taking a turn like this.

In turn, the students were clearly very curious about him. “Come on, Shamir, I just want to say hi,” Claude said for what seemed like the ninth time that afternoon. “I’m not going to corrupt him or whatever you’re thinking. Didn’t you say yourself he’s not a prisoner?”

“I told you no before, Riegan,” she said. In return, Claude smiled brightly and backed away, moving to talk to Hilda again. Just as he had before, in the same position he had taken the other eight times he’d asked. He’d probably be back again later to check if Shamir’s will had wavered a little.

They camped overnight, and Catherine was expelled from her apparently usual spot in Shamir’s tent in favour of Ashe getting some ‘peace and quiet’. In the morning as they prepared to depart, Byleth saw Ashe standing off to the side again, watching as everyone packed up.

“Shamir,” they said, turning to where Shamir was folding up the fabric of her tent. “Ashe is coming to stay at the monastery for the foreseeable future, correct?”

“Most likely, yes,” she replied, handing Byleth one end of the cloth to aid her in folding it. “It depends on Lady Rhea’s decision, of course, but that’s the plan.”

“Why are you keeping him away from the other students, then?” they asked. “He’ll have to know them at some point if he’s living alongside them.”

Shamir fixed them with a sharp look. “Professor,” she said. “You remember what we did two days ago, yes?” They nodded. Shamir looked at them again, and it hit them. “That’s why I’m not making him interact with anyone just yet. He said he wasn’t in the mood for talking to anyone, and I think he’s entitled to some basic respect.”

“Of course,” they said. They glanced towards Ashe again; he was watching Annette and Lysithea, who were wrestling with a couple of heavy saddle bags as they attempted to get them over to the couple of horses with their group. They hoped he’d be okay.

Once they arrived at the monastery, they didn’t see Ashe again until the next day. In fact, they didn’t see anyone, preferring instead to collapse in their bed and sleep until the sun streamed through their regretfully open curtains.

After their usual morning rounds (cats, dragging overeager students out of the training grounds or library, breakfast), Byleth set up in their classroom. After the first couple of students — Lysithea and Annette, as always — trickled in, Gilbert arrived with Ashe in tow.

“Professor,” Gilbert said, and Byleth watched as Annette jumped in her seat and then sat bolt upright, trying her hardest to look as if she was deeply focused on her work. “I know you have already met him, but let me introduce your new student. This is Ashe Ubert. Though he does not have a Crest, the...delicate nature of the political situation in Gaspard territory means that he will be a student here from now until the situation is judged as adequately calm.”

Ashe shifted on the spot, clearly uncomfortable with the phrasing used. Gilbert looked at him for a few moments, clearly expecting him to say something, but he didn’t say a word. After a few moments of decidedly awkward quiet, the only noise being the sound of Lysithea’s pen against paper, Gilbert nodded. “That will be all,” he said. “Good day, Professor.” He paused. “Good morning, Annette.”

Annette practically shot out of her seat to turn around and face him. “Good morning, Fa-” she stopped as Gilbert turned around to leave without even listening to her response. Annette sighed and practically deflated as she moved properly back to her seat. Lysithea, in turn, gave her a quick pat on the back.

Meanwhile, Ashe stood stock still in the doorway, looking entirely lost and completely out of his depth. And Byleth...Byleth wasn’t sure what to say. This was on them, of course, because they were the one who suggested they follow Lonato’s last words. Their suggestion had led to Ashe being in this position.

“You’re welcome to sit wherever you like,” they said, and Ashe sat down in the seat closest to the door. That wasn’t unexpected, they supposed. “I’m...well, I won’t say I’m glad that I get to teach you, because I know it’s not in the most pleasant of circumstances.”

Ashe nodded. “I won’t be a bother,” he said firmly. He was staring at an empty desk; had they not even thought to give him a pen and some paper? They pulled some from their desk and headed over to the back of the room. Ashe seemed surprised to see it. “You really- you don’t need to go out of your way for me, Professor.”

“I’m not going out of my way, Ashe,” they said. They offered up an approximation of a smile, and Ashe returned one decidedly more nervously. “I’m not...pleased with the way this has turned out for you. This has made a difficult time into one ever more challenging. If there is anything you need, or even anything you want, tell me. I’ll see what I can do.”

“I- thank you, Professor,” he said. “I can’t think of anything, but I really do appreciate the offer. Thank you.” He was unbelievably tense, his whole body stiff and his shoulders set awkwardly.

For the whole lesson, in fact, Ashe sat there looking like he’d rather be anywhere else in the world. He alternated between staring at the paper in front of him, not writing anything, and staring at the wall behind Byleth, seemingly looking at nothing. They introduced him very briefly at the start of the lesson, but they’d tried not to dwell on the issue too much; he was clearly deeply uncomfortable in a room with a large group of strangers who’d killed his townspeople, and who could blame him? Byleth certainly didn’t.

The lesson was a fairly standard one that basically taught itself. Byleth opened with a tactics problem, tried to coax answers out of someone who didn’t always answer the questions, and inevitably someone started debating someone else’s choices.

Today, it was Hubert who raised a dissenting point; the problem posed was part moral, part practical, and plenty of students had plenty of thoughts on it. “You see, Ingrid,” he said, explaining a viewpoint Ingrid was definitely aware of, “sometimes a commander is wrong. That said, victory should not be sacrificed in the name of sentiment.”

“I wouldn’t be inclined to agree there, Hubert,” Claude replied, speaking as soon as he raised his hand. “Conviction is an important part of morale. If a commander’s compassion isn’t up to scratch, their soldiers lose faith in both their own actions and in their commander’s ability to lead them to the right end.”

“They are merely poor soldiers, then,” Hubert said simply. “A soldier who cannot put the conviction they have towards their cause before anything else should not be fighting in an army.”

“Tell me, Hubert,” Ingrid said, leaning forward in her seat with a glint in her eye. “Does the Empire have compulsory military service?”

Hubert sniffed. “I suppose you have me there,” he said. “I’ll revise my statement, then. A commander should not lead soldiers who are not committed in such a way into a battle such as that.”

“It’s all nonsense,” Felix said. Byleth watched as Ingrid pulled a face. Actually, about half the class did. “This is exactly the wrong way to go about this situation. If the manoeuvre to not be spotted requires potentially being spotted in a town, it would work far better to set traps in the woods. Especially if the area is, as you suggested, familiar. Sticking to ideals of loyalty, worrying about obedience...it’s all a fool’s errand.”

Now, Ashe, who had been sinking ever further into his seat, stuck his hand up hesitantly. “Yes, Ashe?” they asked. Ashe flinched as everyone turned to look at him, and he shifted to sit a little higher in his seat.

“I mean- sorry- I’m just inclined to disagree with...Felix?” he said, hesitating on the name, and Felix jerked his head in a sharp nod. Ashe winced, but continued. “Just because the tactics have a particular set of values attached to them doesn’t mean they’re not tactically sound. It just means you don’t like the values.”

Silence fell over the room. In general, Felix tended to put an end to debates with his sharp words; he argued in such a way that it was difficult to pick his individual logic apart without deconstructing all of his reasoning, and that was next to impossible to do in a classroom setting. And yet, Ashe had put it into words very succinctly.

Needless to say, Felix’s mouth hung open. He shot Ashe a look, and while he shrank backwards at it, the look didn’t hold the kind of hostility that Felix’s glances towards someone like Dimitri normally did. Byleth would be willing to bet that Ashe would be challenged to a duel before the end of the day.

“You make a good point, Ashe,” they said. “Felix, your point is creative and definitely a valid strategy. That said, if your only objection to the original tactics were that they represented faith in ideals, that’s not enough to discount them. Leading soldiers in the way you described would simply require faith of a different kind.”

At that, Felix stuck his hand up and launched into another, similar tirade, this time slightly better reasoned. Nothing changed, really, though Ashe had relaxed minutely.

The class went on like that, and at the end the students filed out as normal. Once everyone was gone, only Edelgard and Claude remained. “Did you want to talk about something?” they asked.

Edelgard nodded. “I- forgive me, Professor, if we have the wrong end of the stick on this issue.” She paused, and Byleth motioned for her to continue. “I was speaking about this to Claude, and we believe...the reason Ashe is here is due to a plot to assassinate the Archbishop, yes?”

Byleth nodded. “Papers were found within Gaspard’s keep that suggested such a plan existed. Ashe’s presence here is a result of subsequent discussions.”

“It’s far too convenient,” Claude said. “Unsigned papers left to be found when a man rode against impossible odds, revealing their next steps? Besides, attacking the Archbishop during the Rite of Rebirth would be impossible; she’ll be heavily guarded and no one is allowed properly close to the rite. Trust me, I’ve tried.”

Edelgard shot him a stern but slightly fond look. “Yes,” she said. “All of that basically sums it up. We think it may be prudent to consider that this unseen, unknown enemy either does not exist at all or is after something completely different.”

Byleth nodded. “I agree,” they said. They hadn’t even thought of it before, what with all the things that had been going on, all the information they had to process, but they made a good point. “I will take your suggestions to the Archbishop and we can move from there. How does that sound?”

“Perfect,” Claude said with his characteristic grin. “Thanks a million, Teach.”

Getting to speak to Rhea that afternoon was fairly easy, and she listened patiently, a frown creasing her forehead all the while. “I understand,” she said once they’d finished, “but I am...unsure of the merit of these concerns.”

Byleth’s mind immediately shot to the thought that she doubted the suspicions because the source was the students, but they didn’t voice as much. They doubted it would do them any favours. “I feel that the students have a point to at least follow up on,” they said, “even if they end up being wrong. It is better to make a cautious mistake than a reckless one, after all.”

Rhea paused for a moment, a strange look crossing her face, and then nodded. “You are correct,” she said. “That there is cause for tightened security around the monastery on this day is undeniable. I will permit you to organise the students in the patrol and defence of the monastery outside of the area in which the Rite will be performed.”

“Thank you, Archbishop,” they said, bowing their head slightly.

“It is no problem, Professor,” she replied. “I am glad you feel able to bring such concerns to me. Sometimes I worry I am a little...distant, I suppose.”

Byleth didn’t know what to say in response. Rhea was distant; the only reason they’d taken the concerns to her was because she was the only person who could provide the necessary authorisation for them to lead their students in any armed capacity. But, again, saying such a thing sounded like a bad idea, so they attempted a smile before leaving the audience chamber. It was time to talk to their students again.

“Well, if we’re worried that they’re after something other than the Archbishop, we need to work out where, right?” Christie asked later that afternoon. Byleth nodded. “I don’t know...there are lots of valuable things in Garreg Mach.”

“There’s valuable wine in the storehouses,” Ingrid said. “And the food imports are pretty extensive for the Rite of Rebirth, seeing as the monastery is open to the public.”

Sylvain chuckled, and Ingrid hit him in the back of the head. “The monastery seems a strange place to invade for food,” Dedue said. “The greenhouse, however, houses many very rare plants.”

“There are many rare tomes in the library, too,” Ferdinand suggested. “And art! There are huge numbers of one of a kind paintings and sculptures tucked around.”

“It’d sort of be hard to get any of those things away,” Hilda said. “And pointless, if they’re one of a kind, because everyone would know they were stolen and they sure wouldn’t want to be caught buying stolen goods. No, if they don’t want the Archbishop then they probably want to get their hands on us! We definitely shouldn’t be defending the monastery.”

Lysithea snorted. “If they wanted to hurt us, they would have reinforced the rebellion better. That’s assuming the whole thing isn’t a ruse to get everyone worked up, though.”

“‘Scuse me,” sounded a voice. Byleth looked over to see Cyril, who had been tidying up a stack of books left on the edge of a desk. Byleth continually insisted that the students could do it themselves, but Cyril insisted he do it himself. They felt uneasy asking him to, but they couldn’t exactly stop him.

“Oh yeah, Cyril, do you have any thoughts?” Claude asked. Cyril shot him a look.

“Of course I do,” he said. “If they don’t want to hurt Lady Rhea, they want something else, right?” Byleth nodded. “So, what do they achieve by threatening Lady Rhea rather than leaving no trace of the plot? They want everyone’s attention on her safety, obviously.”

“Oh yeah Cyril, that’s right on the mark,” Claude said, not mentioning that this was the exact discussion they’d been having only a few minutes before. “Good job. The only thing is...where?”

“Well, then I guess the question is why the Rite of Rebirth,” he said with a shrug. “The monastery is better guarded when it’s open to the public, so if they wanted something they could get on any other day, they’d just pretend to be merchants.”

A few suggestions got thrown around, but no one came up with anything particularly conclusive. Just as they were agreeing to go away and think about it, Linhardt sat up from where they were taking a nap on the desk. “The Holy Mausoleum,” they said.

“The what?” Christie asked.

“The Holy Mausoleum,” Linhardt repeated. “It’s open on the day of the Rite. I always ask them if I can have more time, but they never say yes. It really is terribly infuriating.”

“Well, there we have it,” Edelgard said. “What’s in the Holy Mausoleum that they could want, Linhardt?”

“Who knows?” he asked with a shrug. “There are candles. Tombs. I don’t know what’s in the tombs, because the monks definitely won’t let me open them. Not for lack of trying, I promise you.”

Edelgard sighed, she turned to Byleth with a fairly satisfied smile on her face. “There we have it, then,” she said. “The Holy Mausoleum must be their target. So on the night of the Rite, we’ll be there.”

“Sounds like a plan.”


	11. Chapter 4.2 - Outer Fears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Byleth catches a glimpse of the way people view Crests outside of the monastery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! :) took a break from updating this all that regularly due to general Writing Feelings and being busy at uni. Hoping that the weekly schedule will resume from here but we'll see how that goes! Thank you for sticking with this fic

“Professor!” Alois called. Byleth waved, intending to continue on towards the fishing pond, but he beckoned them over. They always felt bad refusing him anything at all, honestly. “I had a little request for you, if you don’t mind.” They nodded, so he continued. “Well, we have a little situation.”

“That’s an understatement,” Shamir, who was stood next to him with her arms crossed, said. “Just get on with it and tell them.”

“Hold your horses, Shamir!” Alois said. “I was just getting to it. Anyway, Professor, we’ve had a request from the Eastern Church for some military assistance. Derdriu, the largest city of the Leicester Alliance, is under siege from the Almyran army, according to their reports. They don’t have forces of their own, so they need to borrow some of ours.”

“There’s just a small problem with this,” Shamir explained. “Most of the Central Church forces are currently out west, clearing out the Western Church to reduce the risk to the Archbishop when the Rite rolls around.”

Yes, that was a problem, but why were they being told about it? “Are you going to call people back for this?” they guessed. If they weren’t going to do that, Byleth could guess where the conversation was going.

“Well, not exactly,” Alois said. “Sometimes when things like this happen, we take the students along. The students from the Alliance should probably come with us; it’s territory that they will one day have power over, and this kind of thing helps foster a sense of responsibility. It keeps them from feeling cut off from their home, you see.”

Byleth paused. There was a much easier way to keep the students from being cut off from their homes, in their opinion, but clearly that wasn’t an option to the Church. Still, they were inclined to refuse; their students were children. They were not the Knights. Their training couldn’t replace that, no matter how well Byleth taught them.

“The people of Derdriu aren’t soldiers,” Shamir said, clearly seeing the hesitation on their face. “They’re just merchants, and it’s difficult for them to protect themselves. Without us, they’ll have no one, so they’re sure to be grateful too - we can expect a reward.”

That swayed their thoughts a little; there were lots of things they thought the students could benefit from, and the best way to get those things was to earn some money somehow. Byleth was nothing if not a mercenary, born and raised. And the people left without protection...well, they got the inkling that if Alois asked any of the students from the Alliance, they would have agreed to go anyway.

The moment the students were asked, they were all happy to get out and do something; Byleth got the impression that this was a fairly regular occurrence, but maybe not as regular as the students wanted. Hilda practically jumped from her seat when they suggested it, and she didn’t tend to like doing anything at all. Even Marianne, who tried to avoid situations involving a lot of pressure, was ready to go in a much shorter period of time than they expected.

Byleth supposed it was testament to the tension that was mounting in the monastery itself. As they got closer and closer to the Rite, things around the monastery got a little busier. Routines got disrupted, security was tighter, and no one was particularly happy about any of it. All the students probably all wanted a bit of a break from the monastery in general.

Getting out to Derdriu, they took a road Byleth hadn’t travelled before, but it was a fast journey. They weren’t particularly held up along the way, and it was a clear shot once they got down from the mountains. It was clearly a road that was travelled frequently by traders who came up to the town and the monastery itself - hopefully such a connection would pay off and the attackers wouldn’t have done too much damage.

The defence wasn’t difficult either. Byleth knew very little about the Almyran army from the time they were a mercenary. That said, they knew enough, and they got the feeling that these fair skinned pirates dressed half in rags were not the well-equipped, fearsome Almyran army.

Their suspicion proved to be founded in something, at least, when they reached the commander of the troops. Claude, seemingly having the time of his life, downed an errant wyvern rider with an arrow to the chest and whirled around to face the man.

He called out cheerfully with words Byleth didn’t recognise, and then grinned when the commander floundered. “You’re not Almyran,” he said with relish. “Any Almyran would have recognised that. Pick a more convincing lie next time, eh?” His next arrow hit the mark, and Claude didn’t laugh at his last quip; there wasn’t going to be a next time.

He turned round when they were still looking at him, watching as he shot a rude gesture at the back of a retreating pirate. He didn’t say anything, simply shooting them a smile and turning back towards the city.

Byleth followed, and when they arrived they were shocked at what faced them. Several merchants they’d seen cowering inside their shops were now, instead of thanking Alois, shouting at him. “You shouldn’t have brought them here!” one of them called, gesturing towards…

The students. The merchant was gesturing towards the students, who were grouped together just a short distance from Alois. The assembled merchants were glaring at them. “They’re not able to control themselves, that’s why they’re with you,” one of them continued. “Isn’t the whole point that you’re meant to keep them in the monastery so they can’t hurt us?”

All of them stood there, slightly struck, when the leading merchant who’d promised a ‘handsome reward’ when they arrived to help stepped forward with a small bag. “A few silver coins for your trouble,” he explained. “Truly, we thank you for your efforts, but considering the danger you’ve exposed our merchants to, I hope you understand that the reward can only be small.”

“No,” Alois said firmly, his normally jovial tone much heavier, “I don’t think I can bring myself to understand that. The students all worked very hard and came here of their own free will, as volunteers to help you. Surely they deserve more of a thanks than this?” He looked around helplessly. None of the merchants stepped forward or even did anything more than shake their heads. 

Byleth felt frozen in place. Logically, perhaps they should have known that such a perspective existed in Fódlan. If the students were classed as dangerous, then surely it followed that people feared them, but they still didn’t know what to say. They didn’t know if there was anything they could do to change this situation.

Eventually, Shamir persuaded Alois that asking the merchants to look on them more favourably would just earn them more enemies, and they got back on the road to the monastery. It was a much more sober atmosphere now, and Byleth walked in silence until Claude approached.

“Hey, Teach,” Claude said. His easy smile from before; the fake one, the one he showed to the others so they wouldn’t feel too dejected about everything that had happened, had vanished. Instead, it was replaced by something much smaller. Much harder. “Do you know where I’m from?”

Sometimes it was difficult to tell if Claude’s questions were asked for an answer or for something else. This time, though, they saw no harm in answering “no.” It was the truth, after all.

Claude cocked his head to one side, stared at them for just a second, and then started laughing. Now, his smile was genuine. “Ooooh that’s a good one. I thought, all this time, that it was obvious. ‘specially with Lorenz talking about it all the time.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” they said, because they really hadn’t seen anything of the sort at all. They’d observed a rivalry between the pair; much like Edelgard and Ferdinand, Lorenz aspired to always do better than Claude. He rarely succeeded, because Claude was a fantastic student, but Byleth admired the enthusiasm even if Lorenz’s words occasionally took on a sharper tone.

“Well, when my Crest was discovered by the Church, I was living very close to the Almyran border,” Claude explained. “Obviously, I’m not from around here, and Lorenz and I got on with that basis for a while. But as of earlier this year, I’m a scion of a noble house.” He chuckled, lowering the tenor of his voice as he spoke the last few words, clearly mocking the tone of someone Byleth didn’t know. “Lorenz isn’t such a huge fan anymore.”

“That’s a shame,” they said. They’d been under the impression that the two were still quite friendly, but maybe they’d been mistaken. “And it’s because you lived near the border that you knew the truth about those pirates?”

“I know what Almyrans look and sound like,” he answered with a laugh, “and they’re sure as Ailell not anything like that.”

He hadn’t actually directly answered their question, but Byleth nodded, and Claude turned away with a very different smile on his face. A much softer one than normal. It seemed like they’d managed to do the right thing by doing next to nothing at all. They wondered if that, too, said something about the way Claude had been treated here in Fódlan.

Now the floodgates had been broken and someone had actually spoken to them again, Byleth knew it was only a matter of time before another student came to talk with them. Sure enough, Lorenz was over within minutes of Claude resuming his uncharacteristically quiet conversation with Hilda.

“Don’t you think it’s outrageous, Professor?” Lorenz asked. They looked at him questioningly and he threw a hand into the air. “The ungratefulness of those townspeople. We were helping them; we saved their businesses, perhaps even their lives! I would do it any day, as it is my duty to protect the people of the Alliance and Fódlan as a whole, but they clearly did not understand the weight of our contribution.” His face was faintly flushed, and he looked genuinely angry.

Byleth didn’t really know how to reply, but it turned out they didn’t have to. “Um, th-they only acted in accordance with the teachings of the Church,” Marianne said, her voice soft but just about audible. “Crests are dangerous, and none of us are fully trained.”

Lorenz paused for a moment, and Byleth could practically see him turning the words over in his mind. “I suppose you’re correct, but-” he stopped. “Actually- well-” he sighed. “You are right. I was thinking far more of my own levels of control rather than the appearance and experience of our group as a whole. My apologies.”

And with that, Lorenz, who was perhaps one of the students Byleth had who was most inclined to conversation, trailed off rather awkwardly and started to fiddle with the hems of his jacket. Once Marianne had turned away, Lorenz spoke again. “Ah, Professor...would you mind terribly if I asked you not to mention this conversation to anyone else?” His righteous anger from before was completely gone.

“Of course,” they said, though they couldn’t help but wonder why it was quite so important. Who would chase them up on it? What power did they hold over Lorenz to make him so afraid? It had seemed like a simple difference in opinion to them, but to Lorenz it was clearly much more.

The general mood of their students didn’t improve much as the month wore on and the Rite got closer. They worked hard on being prepared to defend the Holy Mausoleum, but Byleth could tell that their hearts weren’t in it as much as before. Why that was the case became abundantly clear on the day of the Rite itself.

By the afternoon, the monastery was full to the brim with pilgrims. So many people wanted to be in the monastery during the Rite, and festivities were in full swing. There was food being served in the dining hall, stands selling goods nearly everywhere else, and people praying almost anywhere they could find to kneel down. A couple of the students clearly had relatives who had taken the opportunity to see their children too; Byleth spotted Hilda next to a muscly pink-haired man who looked almost identical to her.

But it wasn’t all celebration. About halfway through the afternoon, Byleth noticed Ingrid skirting around the entrance to their room. It took about five minutes for her to work up the courage to come in, and when she did, Christie and Lysithea trailed behind her. “Professor, could I bother you for a favour?” she asked.

Byleth nodded. “Ask away.”

“Could you perhaps...accompany us to the dining hall briefly?”

Ingrid was not a student of theirs who was particularly prone to nervousness. She was confident in her own skin and in her interactions with others, and she held strong convictions she rarely let go of. But now she was running her fingers across the buttons of her jacket, and since she’d stepped into the room she’d pushed her hair back behind her ears at least twice.

“I will,” they said, standing from their seat, and they watched closely as all three of them let out a near-simultaneous sigh of relief. “But I would like to know why, if you don’t mind sharing.”

“Well, we’re as entitled as anyone else to be around the monastery today,” Lysithea explained, “but lots of the people visiting don’t want to be near us. They don’t trust that it’s safe, so they don’t want to be reminded that we’re here.”

Byleth frowned. Was such a fear really justified? Everywhere they’d been today was absolutely crawling with knights, which should have been enough to set even the most paranoid of minds at ease. Even then, they’d spent several moons with their students at this point and they knew that none of them were dangerous. Anyone who was afraid of them had no good reason to be.

They accompanied the three girls to the dining hall, and sat with them while they ate a meal together. It formed a stark contrast to the time they normally spent with them, Christie in particular; normally she had so much to say and always spoke her mind. But with so many people around who might see her opinions as a threat...she ate quietly.

Once they were done in the dining hall, they caught a glimpse of Annette and Flayn waiting just outside in the entrance hall. They bid farewell to Lysithea, Christie, and Ingrid, telling them all to have fun but stay alert for later, and then made their way over to the pair who were clearly looking for them. Once Flayn spotted them, she waved them over.

“Is everything okay?” they asked, and Annette offered up a weak smile in return.

“Yeah!” she said, her voice full of false cheer. “I just wanted to ask if you wanted to come to the cathedral with us, Professor. I wanted to see it all done up with all the candles and shining in the sunset, but…”

“I understand,” they said, glancing back into the dining hall. The trio they’d just eaten with had already vanished. Come to think of it, they’d barely seen any of their students all day; they were starting to understand why.

“It’s just so nice to see how much the festival has grown over the years!” Flayn said, a bright smile on her face. It was a strange thing to say; a few weeks ago, someone had mentioned to them that Flayn had only been at the monastery for a short time. How could she have seen the festival before?

“Why do you need to be with me?” they asked. The question occurred to them rather suddenly, and slipped out in the slightly uncomfortable silence left by Flayn’s strange statement. “You’re not a student here.”

Flayn nodded, and before she could open her mouth, Annette chipped in. “People tend to assume that Flayn is a student like the rest of us,” she said, “seeing as she’s so young.”

“I am not as young as I look!” Flayn insisted, but Annette just looked her up and down and shot Byleth a knowing smile. No matter how old Flayn was (though she always avoided saying just how old that was), she looked young, and that was exactly the problem at hand.

True to Annette’s word, the cathedral was stunning in the evening light. The orange light cast by the sunset was still streaming through the windows, but spaces where the light was fading were instead lit by candles, spread as far as Byleth could see. Even with all the people, the cathedral was a profoundly peaceful place, somehow.

That said, as they walked with Annette and Flayn, Byleth caught sight of several people who were definitely staring at them. The stares were cold, hard. As if Annette didn’t belong here, even though she lived in the monastery. She had a right to be here equal to that of anyone visiting, if not more. The eyes of these strangers slid away as soon as they spotted Byleth, and now they knew why everyone had been so keen to have them along.

It was frustrating to see such a thing. Their students had done nothing wrong; all they wanted to do was participate in the festival just like everyone else. If they had no Crest, if they had instead come with their parents, no one would give them even a second glance.

But they knew they couldn’t do anything about it, and that only made the whole thing all the more frustrating. They wished they could change it, but change in attitudes came with a difference in structure and a boat load of time. Right now, Byleth knew they had neither of those. So unfair was how it would stay.


	12. Chapter 4.3 - Invasion of the Rite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Rite of Rebirth brings to light old things that have long been buried, and truths that change more than Byleth expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rip upload schedule - I just want to go full steam ahead on this fic now :) just gonna keep writing and see where that leaves me.

“Professor!” Byleth’s gaze snapped up from the book in front of them as Cyril burst into their room. He looked hurried, slightly out of breath, but he barely paused before speaking. “Claude sent me. He said that someone spotted some suspicious looking cloaked people entering the Holy Mausoleum, and to fetch you right away.”

They nodded, standing and grabbing the sword they’d left beside their bed. “Thank you,” they said. “Are you off to tell someone else?” He nodded, rushing off in the opposite direction of the cathedral Byleth now headed towards. As they approached, they could see their students grouping together, handing out weapons and potions for the coming battle.

“Edelgard!” they called, taking a spot in front of the gathered students. Edelgard nodded. “And Dimitri, Claude, could I ask you to do something for me?”

“Of course, Professor,” Dimitri said. “As long as it’s fast— the intruders are already inside.”

“I’ll be going into the Mausoleum with the other students now,” they said, “but we don’t know if they’re planning on bringing reinforcements, or how many of them there are in there. So, if you could, can you split up and find whatever soldiers the Knights can spare right now?”

There was, of course, no way of knowing if this was simply a diversion for a larger attack elsewhere, but Byleth got the feeling that whatever they wanted was within the Mausoleum. Even a little backup would be helpful in apprehending these intruders, finding out what they really wanted. Byleth did not want a repeat of the bandits, whose motivation they’d never been able to determine.

Claude handed his bow off to Ashe, who accepted it with no small amount of hesitation (Byleth realised, now, that Ashe’s fear of the students came from more than just what had happened with Lonato, but that was something they’d have to address at another time). With that, they watched as the three of them made their way back across the cathedral. Hopefully this would work.

The students seemed apprehensive about entering the Mausoleum, but Byleth knew they were well prepared. They’d seen the students in action enough times by now to know there was no real cause for concern, but that didn’t mean they could stop paying attention. They needed to lead them well.

As they entered the dimly lit area, Byleth squinted as, past the first line of loosely armoured forces, there was a flash of light. Once it had subsided, they could see a figure in its place, dressed head to foot in dark armour with a bright red and white mask.

“Wait,” they said, holding a hand up to halt their students’ advance once they’d cleared past the first few troops guarding the mage at the far end of the chamber. “Everyone to the left of Ingrid, sweep left. Everyone to the right of Felix, sweep right. Avoid engaging the masked figure.”

“Understood, Professor!” Ferdinand called, leading his group left. Byleth watched the right group leave too, staying a safe distance from the heavily armoured soldier standing in the centre of the room.

“Who are you?” they called. The figure wasn’t in the same colours as the rest of the soldiers here, whose tabards they recognised from the Western Church. No, this soldier was dressed in red and black, with an emblem they didn’t recognise emblazoned on their chest.

“I am the Flame Emperor,” the figure replied. Their helmet masked their voice, which sounded at once high and low. Byleth didn’t recognise it, yet it sounded familiar at the same time.

“What is your business here?” They were powerful; Byleth could sense that much from their stance, the way their grip was level and steady around the hilt of their sword. They needed to know if this Flame Emperor was a passive observer of this battle or if they posed a threat to their students.

“I shall cleanse this world of the power which holds it back,” they said. “Approach at your own peril, Professor. I have no quarrel with you...yet.”

Byleth heeded the figure’s words, heading to the left to back up their students in a fight against a particularly hardy soldier. True to their statement, the Flame Emperor didn’t engage, and Byleth couldn’t help but wonder why. What held them back? What was their true purpose here?

The soldiers who faced them were under equipped and underprepared, especially in comparison to the Flame Emperor. The forces they’d sent crumbled under the weight of their students’ organisation and carefully constructed battle formations, and even when some reinforcements broke through, they were no match for the students. It wasn’t long before Byleth found themselves at the head of a group facing down the leader.

“Stop there!” they called. “You are trespassing here. Do not open that grave.” The masked figure’s hands were glowing, pressed against a stone tomb marked with the Crest of Seiros.

“It’s too late,” he said, pushing back the lid just as Byleth lunged forwards to try and stop him. “The secret of Saint Seiros that has been hiding all these years is...a sword?” Byleth watched as, carefully, the mage leaned into the tomb and pulled out a sword. It looked almost as if it was made of stone, but in that moment it didn’t matter what it was made of. What mattered was that this was what the intruders had come for. They couldn’t be allowed to leave with it.

Byleth stepped forwards once more, throwing their full weight into a strike that left the mage unbalanced. The sword whirled out of his hand, spiralling through the air until it landed...directly into their own. They clenched their fist tighter around the hilt. It felt light in their hands, but not too light. When the mage reached out to send a fireball in their direction, they were able to block it without thinking. When they did so, the whole sword glowed orange. A Relic.

It was then that the reinforcements Claude, Edelgard, and Dimitri had gone to fetch arrived. Catherine, Relic in hand, charged into the Mausoleum, closely followed by a handful of other Knights, Gilbert included, though the students themselves were nowhere to be seen. Still, they were too far away to change the outcome of this battle, which left it to Byleth.

Reaching out as if by instinct, Byleth snapped the sword forwards and it coiled out, lashing the mage in a way more like a whip than a sword. But the moment they straightened their arm again, the segments of the weapon reattached, leaving the sword as it was.

When they turned back, they could see the way the Knights looked at them, but they didn’t- they didn’t understand. Where normally the Knights looked at them and treated them with respect, now...there was something Byleth would describe as fear in their eyes.

“Come on, Professor,” Catherine said, holding her hand out and very slowly taking steps towards them. “Hand over the sword. If you do, nothing needs to get messy here.”

Barely even looking at the terrified faces of their students (they registered, but it was in some far off place of their mind which was mostly captured by the glow in their sword), Byleth shook their head, gripping the hilt tighter. It was their sword. It felt right in their hands. They wouldn’t surrender it without even an explanation.

It only took a couple of moments from there; before they knew it, the Knights were on top of them. Despite the impulse not to let them take the weapon (it was theirs. It fit in their hand and their blood-), they knew better than to resist. They clutched it tightly to their chest as Gilbert pushed them to the ground and pinned their left arm behind their back. “I am sorry, Professor,” he said. “This is necessary.”

Gilbert pulled them up from the ground, still restrained by his grip, and Catherine wrest the sword from their arms. The glow didn’t subside, but the warmth it had filled their limbs with did. The energy faded, and they were left feeling slightly cold. “Come on,” Catherine said. “Students, thank you for your hard work. We can take it from here.”

“Where are you taking the Professor?” Ingrid asked, stepping forward from the bunched together group. The students all looked vaguely terrified. Of what exactly, Byleth couldn’t tell. Them? The Knights?

“Professor Eisner will be discussing tonight’s incident with the Archbishop,” Gilbert said. “Your work is no longer required here. Please, return to your rooms or to the final hours of the festival.”

When Byleth looked over, every student present looked like they wanted to say more, but none of them dared open their mouths. Byleth was glad, honestly; they’d never seen the Knights quite like this and they didn’t want their students to get in any trouble. They’d landed themself in enough of that, so they kept quiet and let Gilbert lead them to the Archbishop’s audience chamber alongside the prisoners. As if they were a prisoner, even.

They watched in silence, no longer restrained but clearly closely watched, as Rhea passed judgement on the conspirators. Death, though the judgement seemed unfair to Byleth; they had killed no one, and they clearly didn’t fully understand the accusations brought against them. There was something going on here, and in her haste for judgement, they got the feeling that the Archbishop was missing a piece of the picture.

When the intruders had been led away, Rhea turned to fix her gaze on Byleth. They remembered, with a start, the way the Archbishop had looked at them when they barely knew each other. When all Rhea knew was that Byleth held a Crest and had stayed away, in contradiction to the laws on Crests. It was a dangerous look, but it was also...there was something else. Byleth couldn’t identify it.

After watching them for a while, Rhea sighed. “Professor,” she said. “I hope you understand how serious the events of tonight have been.”

Did they understand how serious this was? They didn’t understand at all. So many things had happened that afternoon, that evening, in the last few months, and they didn’t understand any of it. They didn’t understand the injustice of this world the Church clearly had significant power over. It didn’t make sense and it definitely wasn’t right.

“I don’t,” they said. “Tell me, because I cannot understand why, after repelling an attack from a hostile group, I was attacked and pinned to the ground by my allies.”

“Professor, don’t dare talk to Lady Rhea in such-” Catherine’s outburst, half formed, was halted by Rhea raising her hand.

“No, Catherine,” she said, “it is fine. This evening has been jarring for many of us. Let them speak freely. Byleth, please, calm down, and I will be able to explain whatever has you so perturbed.”

Her voice was kind, gentle, but her facial expression was still hard. They didn’t know what to trust. “It’s a weapon,” they said. “A Relic, yes, but… All these fears are based around Crests. Yet I’ve seen many terrible things in my lifetime and none of them were linked in any way to Crests. This fear is pointless.”

“And I wish I could say the same,” Rhea replied. Her voice sounded heavy, tired. “Do you remember what I told you, Byleth, about how Crests and Relics are gifts from the Goddess, but also contain a most terrible power?” They nodded. “You wielded a Relic tonight. You saw how much power you had at your fingertips, even without the training to use it.

“But that is not the only thing someone without the training to use a Relic can do. Crests, often exacerbated by the impulses awakened by Relics, can cause people to become terrible monsters. The Knights know this far better than you, and many have regretfully seen it in action. They are terrified by the prospect, and when they see someone with a Crest acting out of the ordinary...well, they act accordingly, and I am glad of it.”

“What kind of monster?” they asked. They’d been told many things repeatedly: be on the lookout for your students losing control over their Crests, don’t let them fall, but they never knew what that actually meant. There was a monster that the Church spoke of, but beyond that, they didn’t have a clue. They didn’t know what it looked like, sounded like, acted like.

“I hope you never have to truly know,” Rhea said, her expression showing that her thoughts were far away from Byleth, still standing in front of her. “Someone falling to their Crest becomes- blinded by obsessive thoughts, I suppose. They become violent, fearing what is happening to them but unable to stop it. They lose control of their actions, and if anyone tries to reach out to them and put a halt to it, they can become distrusting, and then hurt even those they love without realising.

“You must always be wary of such feelings in yourself and others, Professor,” Rhea said, her gaze refocusing with frightening intensity. “Impulses towards violence, towards not trusting others...such times are when you should reach out to everyone within the Church who is here for you to help you control these things. Especially with the Relic, which can enhance these feelings.”

Rhea’s gaze fell on the sword, which had been set in front of her once the intruders had been led away. “That said...I shall permit you to keep this sword. The Sword of the Creator has not been wielded in hundreds of years; you are the only one who can use it.”

“Rhea, this is madness!” Seteth interrupted, stepping forward from where he’d been watching the proceedings. “With all due respect to the Professor, you’ve heard what happened tonight. And that sword is...you cannot hand it away without a second thought. Think of the damage it can do in the wrong hands!”

“Then we will have to trust that our Professor has the right hands,” Rhea said. “My mind is made up, Seteth. It is becoming clear that we have enemies in places far too numerous for us to know. Any defence someone as talented as Byleth can provide is welcome.”

“I...as you wish, Rhea,” Seteth said, not bothering to conceal his sigh. Rhea turned back towards them, reaching out to give them the sword. Carefully, Byleth took it from her grip, trying to ignore its glow and the warmth it spread through their whole body.

They sheathed the sword, willing themselves to act normally but realising that they didn’t know exactly how they normally moved, how they normally interacted with Rhea. Especially in front of the Knights who, not even an hour before, had pinned them to the Mausoleum floor. What if they did what they normally did, but it was judged out of the ordinary as it breached decorum? Or what if they acted as they were probably supposed to, and this was then seen out of character?

Barely managing to keep their breathing under control, they thanked Rhea and left the audience chamber. They had something very important to attend to.

-

They weren’t surprised that their classroom was full when they made their way over. They didn’t quite know how their students had known to wait there, but they were glad they had. Byleth could feel the tension bleeding out of the room from the moment they stepped inside.

“Professor!” Bernadetta called, practically leaping from her seat. “Oh, we were so worried, I thought they were going to kill you. They aren’t going to kill you, right? Unless they are, and you’re just coming to say goodbye. Oh no, they are, aren’t they? I won’t let them, Professor, it isn’t fair!”

“Bernie,” they said, stopping a short distance from her. Bernadetta looked up, her face full of distress. “It’s okay. No one is dying here. The Archbishop just told me to be careful. Is that okay?”

“So they didn’t even give you a warning?” she asked. They shook their head, and she let out a shuddering sigh of relief. “Good. That’s good.”

“I will admit,” Hilda said, letting out a laugh that sounded far too nervous for her usual temperament, “I thought it was a bit touch and go there. When the Knights took you away and just dismissed us, I thought Hubert was going to go in there and demand your release himself!”

Hubert scoffed, but he didn’t deny Hilda’s words. “It was rough, seeing the Knights handle you like that,” Sylvain said. “But if it all turned out fine in the end, then no harm done, right?”

Byleth thought about the bruises on their wrists and back that would inevitably blend with the other small injuries they’d received during the battle and considered saying that yes, some harm had been done. But even though Sylvain’s words were light, his tone betrayed his concern, so they nodded. “I’m fine,” they said.

“I’m glad,” Linhardt said, “though I fear they could have done a better job. They left without doing a sweep of the Mausoleum, and in all the confusion, that masked figure disappeared. Who knows where he is now?”

“I’ll let the Knights know at the next security meeting,” they promised, idly wondering if they would now be considered a potential security threat. Hopefully not. Given the escape of the Flame Emperor, they doubted they should be the primary concern.

They ended up walking back to their rooms alongside many of the students, who seemed loath to let them out of their sight again. It was slightly endearing, if a little concerning, but they waved goodnight to the small group that remained and hoped they all felt a little reassured.

It was only when they closed the door, the last thing they saw being the still slightly worried faces of their students, that the full gravity of what had happened that night hit them. The lessons they had been given that night of the monster supposedly hidden inside each Crest bearer, the force with which the Knights had dealt with them...those hadn’t been lessons learned several years into adult life for their students.

Their students were, at least in part, children. Many of them had been born into noble families where they had siblings or other family members with Crests, and it would have been considered likely that they would bear one of their own from the moment they were born. The teachings that had just told Byleth they were dangerous? Their students had grown up with that knowledge.

The fear that seized them in front of the Knights as they tried to leave the audience chamber...the students had felt that for most of their lives. They knew Dimitri, for one, had been here for thirteen years, perhaps fearing that every moment would draw him a step closer to falling on the wrong side of the Knights’ judgement.

Did they feel those impulses to violence? How did Felix feel about being competitive? Was this why Lorenz had backed down so easily, why Marianne always held herself back? Were they all afraid that, one day, everything would fall away from them and they’d be left on the other side of their peers’ swords?

Byleth couldn’t imagine what growing up like that could be like. They didn’t want to imagine. The knowledge seeped through the memory of every interaction with their students. They’d been striving to get to know them, but did the students see that as understanding or simply surveillance, another way to tell if they were straying from the path set before them?

It was a worrying thought, and still they didn’t know the answers to this world. They’d thought that the key lay ahead of them once they’d started asking those questions, but they were left only with more questions to accompany the answers. Where was the justice in a system that brought children up to fear themselves? Was the tale of a monster held within their blood really true?

Byleth didn’t know what to do or where to go from here. All they could do was put their head to their pillow and sink into an uneasy sleep, hoping that the morning would bring some clarity. They dreamt of vast armies clashing on a dark field and, not for the first time, they wondered what it all meant. If it even meant anything at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone is doing well in these unsettling times <3 if you're reading this as it goes up (or any time close to it, I imagine), it means a lot to me that you'd take time out of what I imagine is your very stressful daily life to read this.


	13. Chapter 5.1 - Troubles of the Kingdom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Byleth learns of some of the conflicts taking place in the Kingdom and meets one of the nobles involved.

The next morning, Byleth was accosted in the dining hall at breakfast to attend a meeting with several of the knights and staff members. They knew what it was about, of course, so the opening statements didn’t surprise them - or anyone else, for that matter. “The pressing issue is, for now, last night’s invasion of the monastery,” Seteth began. “I’m sure you’re all aware of what happened yesterday.”

“Of course,” Professor Hanneman said. “I think we should start with the fact that it is incredibly concerning that anyone managed to get that far in the first place. We should almost definitely be more thorough with checking visitors in the future.”

“I will have to disagree, Hanneman,” Manuela responded, and Byleth watched as Hanneman rolled his eyes. “The only reason the perpetrators felt able to do this at all was because of the high numbers of people in the monastery. There was no way we would have been able to check every single visitor.”

“Perhaps we should have at least tried,” Hanneman shot back. Byleth watched as at least three of the knights around the table sat back in the chairs - clearly, this was a common enough occurrence that they were content to leave them to it. “It may have deterred them.”

“They were intent on stealing a holy Relic from a tomb,” Manuela pointed out. “They weren’t going to be deterred by someone at the gates asking them if they had a sword.”

“One of the individuals present called themselves the Flame Emperor,” Byleth said, interrupting the petty bickering that had broken out. Immediately, all attention was on them. Byleth willed their hand not to stray to their (purposefully empty) sword hilt. “They said they wished to cleanse the world of something that held it back, but didn’t go into details. They were masked, so I couldn’t see who they were, and they didn’t engage any of us.”

“Who in Fódlan could they even be working for?” Alois asked.

“It could have been all manner of people,” Shamir answered. “Our primary foes were the Western Church - they could have been hired by one of them, or by someone higher up in whatever they were attempting.”

“It could have been someone involved with the Western Church who wanted to see how everything played out,” Catherine suggested. “Hence why they didn’t engage. They could be planning on making another move as we speak.”

“They weren’t necessarily from the Western Church,” Seteth replied. “There could be all manner of people they were working for. Perhaps, given the moniker of Emperor, they were working with the Empire itself.”

“That would seem foolish,” Ignatz pointed out, shrinking in his seat slightly when all eyes turned to him. “Well, why would they name their spy something so obvious if they didn’t want us to know that they were involved?”

“Perhaps,” Seteth conceded. “But it remains that the Empire has not been entirely favourable towards the Church in the last few years. There have been some concerning policy elements recently over tithes and religious buildings.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Catherine said with a frown. “The Emperor himself was never the most Church-loving individual, but he hasn’t held much power for years - his health has been ailing considerably over the past decade at least.”

“And even if his faculties are lessening and his advisors have been working harder, they have always been staunchly in favour of the Church’s teachings - think of Duke Aegir’s numerous gifts towards the Church,” Gilbert added. “On top of that, the only new element likely to be involved is the imperial Prince, but he was trained here at the monastery. There should be no real cause for concern.”

“This conjecture is pointless,” Shamir pointed out. “We don’t know anything yet, and we definitely don’t know enough to draw any conclusions. We’re in even less of a position to make any kind of accusation towards the Empire or any other body, so for now we should just leave things as they are.”

“I agree,” Seteth concurred. “Please keep gathering information about these things if you can, Shamir. Your expertise in this area is invaluable in uncertain times such as these.”

“On that topic,” Alois chipped in, “a few moons ago, the question was raised as to whether that unsavoury figure roaming around the town was being aided by someone within the monastery or not. Is this perhaps the same figure, and if so, does anyone have any more ideas on who may have been helping them?”

“Does anyone know where the various students were on the day of the Rite?” Gilbert asked. “This could help us narrow it down, at least.”

“I don’t think I saw anyone yesterday,” Raphael noted. “Is that important?”

“Lots of students don’t like the number of people at the monastery during big events,” Seteth explained. Yes, that was one way to put it, Byleth supposed. It wasn’t entirely accurate.

“I spent some time with Ingrid, Christie, and Lysithea at dinner,” Byleth said, “and I took Annette to the cathedral with Flayn.”

“Flayn is not a-” Gilbert started.

“Flayn is not a student, yes, I know,” Byleth replied. “She was with me when I was with Annette. You could ask her, if you like. Cyril was the one who fetched me from my room to get me to go to the Mausoleum. From there, I took all my students into the area except Dimitri, Edelgard, and Claude, who went to gather reinforcements. I trust you saw them?”

“No,” Gilbert said, a thoughtful frown forming on his face. Ah. That posed a problem. “I was fetched by Cyril.”

“I was too,” Catherine noted. “I didn’t see Dimitri, Claude, or Edelgard. What about anyone else?” The rest of the knights shook their heads. That was concerning.

“That is definitely a cause for concern,” Shamir said, “but in the end it means little. Perhaps the three of them were looking in the wrong places. Or maybe Cyril got to the knights who responded first. There’s so little evidence as to where almost any of the students were before or after the incident - no one kept an eye on them once the battle was over, did they?” Again, everyone shook their heads.

“We’ll have to remember it,” Gilbert said. “But, as before, it is perhaps too early to act on any suspicions we may have.”

“I agree,” Seteth replied. “Unfortunately, there is so much still unknown about this incident, and it is difficult to know how to gather the right information. Perhaps we should be cautious before drawing any conclusions on this. We definitely shouldn’t let it affect any future plans for the rest of the year.”

“Speaking of the rest of the year,” Hanneman said, “which of the students are leaving at the end of this year?”

“Claude, Edelgard, Dimitri, Dedue, Hubert, Felix, perhaps Sylvain, Ingrid, Lorenz, Hilda, Ferdinand, Bernadetta, and Marianne?” Manuela suggested. She looked at her hands as she spoke, raising a finger each time she said a name. “Any issues with any of those?”

Byleth felt uncomfortable as each staff member fell into silence for a moment. There were judgements being made here. Important ones. “Von Riegan came to the monastery rather late,” Seteth said, “as did von Edmund. They have less training than many of the other students set to leave this year, but they’re also due to lead their territories some day. Von Riegan’s time in that position will likely come fairly soon.”

“The Fraldarius boy comes up time and time again for behavioural issues,” Gilbert pointed out. “Levelling accusations at classmates, resisting any and all reprimands and recommendations...it is only natural that we should worry over whether he should graduate come the end of this year. Especially considering his Crest.”

“I’m unsure about that,” Catherine said. “Yes, his Crest is major and he is, to put it mildly, a pain, but he’s also intensely disciplined. He’s been here for a long time. If he hasn’t learned yet, he never will. Von Riegan, on the other hand…”

“His infractions have been minor in nature,” Shamir cut in. “Even if he has been here for a relatively short period of time, he also has many years of real world experience on his belt with no real sign of problems. He’s a nuisance at worst, a strategist at best. I see no reason to warn him he may be held back.”

“Onto other students, then,” Seteth decided. “The older von Hresvelg girl should be allowed to depart this year. She was held back last year due to circumstances completely beyond her control and a technicality at best. Otherwise, she has been a model student. Her servant, von Vestra, will leave with her.”

“Also from the Empire there’s von Varley,” Alois noted. “She’s a little skittish and her behaviour could technically be a cause for concern, but I don’t think that has anything to do with her Crest. It’s a personal opinion, of course, but I trust you all agree?”

Seteth nodded. “Though I do wonder whether being sent home at the end of this year would be the best for her…” he shook his head. “Alas, there is no good reason to keep her here, unless she should request it herself.” Byleth made a mental note to perhaps drop that into conversation with Bernadetta - they knew very little of the young woman’s home situation, but if it was bad enough to come up in a meeting with all the knights and professors then it couldn’t be anything good.

“And finally,” Manuela said, “has there been any progress on the Gautier issue?”

“Yes, actually,” Shamir noted. “That was what I was going to come to next. We’ve had news from Margrave Gautier about the problem - Miklan Gautier, in charge of an armed band, broke into a Gautier convoy when it was on the move. He stole the Lance of Ruin and has since taken it to a fortified point elsewhere in the Kingdom.”

With that, Shamir turned to Byleth. “Professor, I think it would be best if you dealt with this issue with your students. Fighting someone with a Hero’s Relic is no joke, even if they have no Crest of their own to properly wield it. Perhaps especially so. You should fight the band of robbers in their stronghold, retrieve the lance, and, if possible, take out their leader.”

“Of course,” they said, and as the meeting began to wrap up they thought the issue over. There had been a lot of information there, clearly referencing things that Byleth had never even heard of. They knew nothing of a Miklan, or that the Gautier family had a Relic of their own. Clearly, though, there was some relation between this issue and Sylvain.

So, naturally, they went to talk to him about it. When they explained the task to him, he...laughed. They squinted at him. “What’s funny?” they asked.

Sylvain laughed again, and Byleth realised it was distinctly lacking in humour. This wasn’t funny to him. “Miklan is my older brother,” he explained. “He doesn’t have a Crest, hence all the concern about the Lance of Ruin.” Byleth didn’t exactly know what that meant, but they let him continue once he’d laughed again. “My father must be absolutely apoplectic, knowing he’s stolen it.”

“How do you...feel about it?”

“About killing my brother?” he asked, and chuckled. For a moment, Byleth expected him to say he was glad, but the mirth on his face faded quickly. “I’m not sure,” he admitted. “I wish Miklan hadn’t done this. I didn’t want it to come to...yeah.”

Byleth didn’t know what to say to that, so they opted to take their leave. They were sure that, whatever the issues were, Sylvain would need some time to process it on his own. As they made their way back to the centre of the monastery, they passed Felix, who was very quickly making his way back to the dormitory. Too quickly, perhaps.

“Is something the matter?” they asked, and Felix practically skidded to a halt. He was frowning.

“I’m going up to my room,” he explained, as if Byleth hadn’t been able to see that clearly already. “If you see my father - you’ll know who he is - just, I don’t know, tell him you haven’t seen me. Thanks.” Without even waiting to hear their answer, Felix marched off, leaving Byleth mildly confused.

Felix hadn’t seemed upset, though, just annoyed, so they were content to make their rounds like usual to inform their students of the task they’d been set. As they made their way towards the knight’s hall, they did indeed see a man who looked very much like Felix.

“Hello!” the man called, waving to them and dipping into a short bow. “I am Rodrigue Achille Fraldarius. From what the students have been telling me, I gather you are the new professor here?” They nodded. “Fantastic! I’ve been looking for Felix, and I wondered if you’d seen him.”

Byleth paused for a moment. “I haven’t,” they said. In reply, Rodrigue only smiled a knowing smile and excused himself. Somehow, Byleth felt that he could tell they were lying.

It turned out that Rodrigue was there to aid with the delivery of the message with regards to the issue of the Lance of Ruin, but he also had another request; there was a bandit problem in Fraldarius territory, and Rodrigue wanted the students to help clear it up. 

To do so, Byleth took the students from the Kingdom in advance of the rest, accompanied by both Duke Fraldarius and Gilbert. The other students were to follow behind a day or so later, so as not to slow them down with large amounts of equipment. Byleth understood fairly well that getting to a bandit problem sooner rather than later was key.

“Goddess,” Felix complained as they approached the village that was particularly plagued with bandits. “My father can’t even protect his own territory.”

Byleth didn’t say anything so as not to sour his mood further, but they didn’t exactly agree. In Rodrigue’s defence, the bandits in the village were a pretty nasty bunch. They had absolutely vicious axes, and the villagers were insistent on running almost directly into danger. It was touch and go for several moments, and Byleth found themselves worrying that the students were spread too thin.

Part way through the battle, Dimitri had managed to get cut off from the rest of the group by a couple of bandits, swords in hand. Byleth watched desperately as he swung his lance around, and they knew that Rodrigue and Felix were watching too. Almost everyone watched, with bated breath, as the situation just got worse and worse.

“I’m sweeping left,” Rodrigue explained, a strange tenor to his voice. “Felix, go right!” And then, without a moment’s notice, he practically tossed the Relic shield he held in his arms to Felix.

Felix’s eyes blew wide, just for a moment, and there was palpable tension in the air. Byleth felt everyone freeze as Felix took the Relic in his hands and then started to move. He moved towards Dimitri, felled a bandit, and brought the shield up against another blade.

The battle went on, and the tension passed. The tide was decisively turned, and they tore through the remaining enemies up to the final fortified spot in the village. Once the battle was over, they reconvened back at the centre. Everyone was exhausted, breathing heavily, but alive.

“Lord Rodrigue,” Gilbert said, striding over from where he had been protecting villagers to the south. “That was perhaps not the most foolproof action for the middle of a battle.”

“Why,” Rodrigue asked, “whatever do you mean, sir Gustave?”

Byleth watched as the look on Gilbert’s face changed from one of calculated concern to barely concealed annoyance. Meanwhile, a smile spread on Annette’s face. “Bestowing a Relic on your son during battle could have gone a vastly different direction,” he said. “Discipline, not the element of surprise, is key in such a battle.”

The carefully sincere look on Rodrigue’s face remained fixed in place as he looked directly at Gilbert. “I trust my son,” he said. “Do you?”

Gilbert grumbled something under his breath, and the subject was quickly dropped, leaving Byleth to take stock of their students and how they were doing after the admittedly rather fraught battle. Tearing down streets, trying to protect civilians, and the added stress of a second Relic on the battlefield...Byleth was, quite honestly, exhausted.

Everyone was, unsurprisingly, looking at Felix, who was turning his new shield over in his hands. The way he looked at it...well, Byleth knew what picking up a Relic that resonated with them felt like. They hoped Gilbert wouldn’t suggest that Felix relinquish it for the time being.

Once Rodrigue had finished thanking all the villagers for their efforts and encouraging them to return to their homes and rest before beginning any repairs to the town, he made his way back over to their group. He congratulated them, one by one, praising each of the students for little things he’d been impressed by. It was good to see an adult encouraging them so much.

When he got to his son, Felix was uncharacteristically silent. Rodrigue complimented his form and dedication, and then- “You better not be trying to get me to buy into all the shield and self sacrifice nonsense,” Felix snapped.

“I hope you don’t feel I was forcing you into anything,” Rodrigue said, his voice firm. “But if you were ever to accept the mantle that comes with the Aegis Shield, it would be a great honour to you.”

Felix huffed. “You’re sick,” he said. He looked around at the rest of the students, his gaze zeroing in on Ingrid in particular. “You’re all sick with knightly ideals, worshipping death like it’s nothing.” With those words, he stormed off in the direction of the outskirts of the village, clutching the shield between his hands.

The rest of the students glanced awkwardly between each other and dispersed, going to check on their supplies and prepare for the journey ahead. That left Byleth alone with the Duke.

“I apologise,” he said, his voice lower than before. “I am sorry you had to see our little family spat. Felix and I...don’t see eye to eye. I regret to say we haven’t had the time together to fix that rift, if it were even possible to do so.”

“You don’t need to apologise,” they said. If anything, it should probably have been Felix apologising. His words weren’t much harsher than normal for him, but they were clearly meant to cut.

“I fear I do,” he said. “It is my fault that this happened, after all; I should not have mentioned duty in any form, it always sets him off. We disagree over knighthood, you see- specifically over the death of my son Glenn.”

“Glenn?” they asked. Felix had never mentioned a Glenn to them. No one had, for that matter.

Rodrigue looked...disappointed, so to speak. Maybe sad. His mind was certainly fixed somewhere in the distance, even as he still met Byleth’s gaze. “He died a few years ago,” he explained. “Honourably, and protecting Prince Dimitri. I will always be proud of him for that, but Felix disagrees.”

Byleth didn’t quite know what to say. It made sense, of course, that the issue was raw, but… They didn’t get the time to answer anyway. Before they could fathom as to what would be a suitable response in this kind of situation, Rodrigue dipped into another bow. 

“I’ll part ways from your group here,” he explained, “but I wish you luck in the battle ahead. It is sure to be a difficult one; Miklan is no green soldier. Perhaps it is selfish of me to ask this, but I also...I hope Felix can find someone who really understands him. Maybe that person will be you.”

He departed quickly after that, leaving Byleth alone with their thoughts. Someone who understood his son...it was an interesting thing to wish for. Sad, almost, that he had to- they didn’t know when Glenn had died, but they’d hazard a guess that it had something to do with the Tragedy of Duscur. That Felix and Rodrigue hadn’t been able to patch things up since then...that was a tragedy in itself.

They gathered their students together and departed. Crests, Relics, broken families— it felt like they were stamping all over their students’ private lives right now. Byleth wished they didn’t have to; they felt like they were seeing things they should not.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading :) if you have any thoughts, questions, observations, anything, please please please let me know because feedback makes these things so much easier. You can also say hi to me over on twitter [@samariumwriting](https://twitter.com/samariumwriting) if you fancy that.


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